Assam deleted nearly 1.25 lakh ration cards in December

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: Only in the month of December 2024, as many as 1,24,980 ration cards in the state were cancelled, and the people in whose names the cards were made out will stop receiving PDS items. Moreover, the newly added beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) will start getting food grains from the month of January 2025.

Under NFSA, two kinds of ration cards are issued; one is under the Antodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and the other is for Priority Households (PHH). The same applies to beneficiaries in Assam.

According to sources, in the month of December 2024, a total of 68 ration cards under AAY and 1,24,912 cards under PHH were deleted. One of the reasons given is that Aadhaar Card linkage was not done by some beneficiaries. Other reasons include ineligible beneficiaries who were availing themselves of the benefits and some ration cardholders who had expired but the cards continued to be active. After verification, the discrepancies were noted by the authorities concerned, and the cards were then deleted from the national database.

In the case of ineligible beneficiaries, it should be mentioned here that some had an income of over Rs 4 lakh, which violated one of the criteria. Also, no government employees are allowed to avail themselves of this benefit.

Recently, it was decided to add around 19 lakh new beneficiaries under NFSA. So far, around 17 lakh new beneficiaries have been added to the system.

According to sources in the Commissionerate of Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs, after the inclusion of new beneficiaries and deletion of ineligible cards, around 70 lakh households now have ration cards. The total number of beneficiaries is around 2.45 crore in the state.

Also Read: Assam: Ration Cards Distributed Under National Food Security Act in Haflong

Also Watch: