TN to get smart cards next year
 

Tamil Nadu may be a pioneer in allotting a whopping `4,500 crore towards food subsidy with a lofty aim to insulate poor people from rising prices. Sadly, at least one eighth of the subsidy would be going to the hands of unscrupulous persons, who possess bogus family cards, according to government data.

“The 2011 census projects the population of Tamil Nadu at 7.21 crore, whereas as per the ration card database, total number of family members is 8.37 crore,” food minister Budhichandran informed the Assembly in his department’s policy note.

“The difference of 1.16 crore is to duplication of same names in different cards and ghost or bogus cards. Because government incurs a subsidy of `2,400 per card per year, it is essential that bogus cards are eliminated at the earliest”, he further reasoned.
However, the minister did not mention other freebies such as mixies, fans, and grinders to the card holders.

The previous DMK government was able to weed out only 14.29 lakh family cards after carrying out 100 per cent door to door verification across the state.

Sources recalled that the previous regime has identified 2.65 lakh bogus cards in Chennai but failed to stop the supply of foodgrains.

Chief minister Ms Jayalalithaa said biometric based smart family cards would be distributed in the state from next year to weed out bogus cards and avoid duplication of names. The validity of the existing cards would be ending by December 2011.
“As family cards are now being issued without any unique mechanism to identify duplication of members, there is registration of members in family cards in more than one place which results in duplication of names as well as issue of bogus cards. Further, in the fair price shops, bogus billing is being prepared for family cards” she said.

The director of census operations under the National Population Registry is conducting bio-metric capturing of fingerprints and iris of citizens to issue unique identification numbers.

After completion of this process of bio-metric capturing, it has been proposed to adopt the data for issue biometric based smart faily cards, she said.

Dear Members in the Forum, It's nice to hear from the Tamilnadu Govt, About the fullproof arrangements which are being taken to eradicate all the bogus cards in future. ALLTHE BEST.

C HEENUVS.