40,000 get ration under ONORC in Delhi in August

New Delhi, Sep 7 (PTI) As many as 40,000 people, who have ration cards of other states, availed the benefit ONORC and collected food grains from fair price shops in Delhi in the month of August, government officials said Tuesday.

Delhi government implemented the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme in the national capital in July this year.

Delhi has 17.77 lakh cardholders and 72 lakh beneficiaries. It has over 2,000 fair price shops (FPS).

In August this year, 40,797 people, who have their ration cards made in other states, collected food grains in Delhi under ONORC while in July only 16,000 such people availed the benefit of the scheme, a government official said.

The official added that the scheme was a “boon” for migrant workers and other such floating population living in the national capital as they can get ration from any of the fair price shops.

Under the ONORC scheme, people holding a ration card under the National Food Security Act can collect their monthly quota of food grain from any FPS across the country.

The portability depends on ePoS machines, which use Aadhaar-linked biometric authentication to verify the identity and entitlement of beneficiaries.

The Delhi government distributes free ration to beneficiaries under National Food Security Act (NFSA) and Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) through electronic point of sale devices.

Delhi government had suspended the use of ePoS in early 2018, following complaints of poor network leading to authentication failures and exclusion of genuine beneficiaries.

Ration distribution though ePOS was restarted in July this year. PTI AKM MGA MGA