34 States/Uts Now Implementing Ration Card Scheme
2 min readWith West Bengal and Delhi joining on board, the number of states that implement the One Nation One Ration Card has reached 34, which covers roughly 94.3% of the beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act. The Minister stated in a statement “Under One Nation One Ration Card online, which was successfully operating in 32 US/UT countries until December 2020, two other US/UTs-Delhi and West Bengal have been implemented by August 2021, thereby extending the system to 34 US/UTs covering nearly 75 Crore beneficiaries (nearly 94.3 per cent of NFSA population).”
“We are aiming for ONORC integration in the next few months, two other countries—Assam and Chhattisgarh,” said the statement. As Delhi became a member of the ONORC on 23 July, West Bengal did likewise, according to a government official, with effect from 13 August. On 29 June, the development followed the establishment of a system for ONORC that provides inter- and intra-state mobility by 31 July in all states and union territories.
Further Key Takeaways
- ONORC aims to enhance the purchase of subsidised ration from any fair price shop in the country of migrant workers and their family members pursuant to the 2013 Food Safety Act. In August 2019, it was launched
- According to the Food Minister of the Union, an average of around 2.2 transactions for the monthly transactions of crore portability is currently reported across States and Union territory.
- As far as the mobility of the ration cards between countries is concerned, Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra and Gujarat are the top four countries with the largest number of internal transactions recorded since the system was launched, stated the Department.
- In Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, however, the largest number of external transactions has been observed.
Under the “one nation, one ration card” policy, the Bengal government will give free migrant rations.
- Under the “one nation, one ration card” initiative, the Mamata Banerjee government has decided to provide free foodgrains to migrant workers in Bengal.
- Under the National Food Security Act, the Centre provides rice at Rs. 2 per kilogramme and wheat at Rs. 2 per kilogramme. The Bengal government has increased its subsidy to distribute free food grains to 6.01 million people in the state. Those who have migrated to Bengal in quest of work would now be eligible for the benefit.
- The state government claims to have the most social programmes in the country. The first step toward achieving this goal is to extend the benefits of the free grain programme to migrants.
- Last year, the administration estimated that over 1 Lakh migrants from neighbouring states were trapped in Bengal during the statewide shutdown. However, no official estimate of the number of migrants in Bengal exists. Furthermore, as more individuals leave the state in pursuit of work, Bengal is becoming more of an out-migrant state.