ANANTAPUR: The issuance of household supply (ration) cards to the families, who are not having them, in six municipalities and one corporation in the district is likely to be completed by August 10. The exchange of existing cards will commence immediately after the fresh cards are issued.

As part of the exercise to issue new ration cards with `iris' technology, families who are not having cards are being covered in the first phase.

Massive exercise

At the rate of 7,500 existing cards for each designated photo lamination (DPL) centre, 30 DPLs were set up in phases from June 28 to July 25. The responsibility of setting up and maintenance of the DPL centres was given to a private service provider by the Commissioner of Civil Supplies. The personnel required for the exercise were drawn from Revenue, Civil Supplies, Municipal, Co-operative, Zilla Parishad, Panchayat Raj and other departments. With the help of an iris camera at each of the DPLs the officials were able to process 150 to 160 applications (declaration forms) per day.

The Joint Collector Shashibhushan Kumar told The Hindu on Thursday that the municipal bill collectors were accorded the responsibility of distributing declaration forms to all the households.

Along with the application forms, a pamphlet listing the eligibility criteria and information about the date and venue of DPL centre assigned to beneficiaries applying for new card was also indicated. The pamphlets also informed that the existing cardholders could get their cards exchanged in the second phase.

Accordingly, notices were issued to 1,66,200 households so far informing them about the exercise. In response, 43,333 households had applied for new white ration cards and 15,619 sought white cards. Besides, 806 white and 223 pink cards were also exchanged.

Those who had applied for pink cards were issued cards across the counter, while the white card seekers were being issued cards after necessary enquiry.

Of the 43,333 applications for new white cards, the officials had cleared 19,621 families for white cards and 2,761 for pink cards so far.

Another 937 were rejected due to wrong information provided by them. Of the eligible new applicants, 10,748 were handed over white and 1,012 pink cards.

During the exercise, four forgery cases were detected at Anantapur and Dhamavaram. The persons concerned, who turned up twice with their sons' families were warned and let off.

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