The Hindu : New Delhi News : Probe ordered into ration card scam

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Wednesday, Jul 09, 2008
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New Delhi

Probe ordered into ration card scam

Staff Reporter

With computerisation of data base, many bogus cards eliminated: Minister

The scam has caused a loss of over Rs.250 crore in the past four years
3 lakh quintals of rice and 2.2 lakh litres of edible oil seized: Yusuf

NEW DELHI: A day after the non-government organisation Parivartan exposed a major scam involving bogus ration cards that has caused a loss of over Rs.250 crore in the past four years, Delhi Food and Civil Supplies Minister Haroon Yusuf on Tuesday said that the State Government had ordered a probe into the issue.

Addressing a press conference, Mr. Yusuf said the Government would ensure delivery of foodgrains under its Public Distribution System (PDS) to the targeted beneficiaries.

He assured that action would be taken against those found guilty.

“The Government is committed to eliminating all bogus cards in Delhi. With computerisation of the data base of ration cards, it has been able to eliminate a large number of multiple ration cards,” he said.

The Minister said a total of 170,598 bogus ration cards were detected and of these 11,256 were of Antodaya Yojana (AAY) category, 17,364 of Below Poverty Line (BPL) category and 141,978 of Above Poverty Line (APL) category. The Government, he added, would continue to intensify its efforts to provide a fool-proof data base of ration cards to ensure delivery of essential food items under the PDS and expose the nexus of food and supplies officials, fair price shop owners and others involved in the preparation of these bogus cards.

Mr. Yusuf claimed that the Government had taken precautionary measures to revamp the PDS to ensure that food items meant for APL card holders with higher incomes who do not draw ration from fair price shops were not diverted to the black market.

He said the Government recently had filtered out 10 lakh APL cards thereby reducing the total number of APL cards from 25 lakh to 15 lakh by keeping a sealing of Rs.1 lakh per annum per household as the eligibility criteria.

The Minister stated that the Department of Food and Supplies had been taking action against hoarders by conducting raids and lodging FIRs.

So far, Mr. Yusuf said, 3 lakh quintals of rice and 2.2 lakh litres of edible oil had been seized.

Likewise, he added, even LPG dealers involved in diversion of subsidised domestic cooking gas for commercial use had not been spared.

The Minister maintained that the Delhi Government had computerised all its existing 70 circles and pointed out that it was during the process of computerisation of records that the anomalies in the PDS had come to light.

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