Bengaluru: With the ‘Anna Bhagya' (rupee-one-per-kilo rice scheme) already reaching out to 95 lakh BPL families and the pile-up of 30 lakh new applications for ration cards, the biggest challenge facing the Food and Civil Supplies department now is to weed out bogus cards and bring all the genuine beneficiaries into the ambit of the rice scheme.
To accomplish this mammoth task, the department is taking a leaf out of the Election Commission of India experience. If ECI created booth level officers to boost the quality and authenticity of the voters' list, Karnataka will become the first state to build a booth level team to streamline the public distribution system (PDS) with the introduction of Fair Price Shop Level Officers' (FSLOs) concept.
"Weeding out bogus ration cards is important. But identification and inclusion of genuine beneficiaries is a big challenge. With, only 400 food inspectors, it was impossible to cater to 20,000 PDS shops. But the FSLO concept will be a game-changer. We have roped in 10,000 officials - village accountants and panchayat secretaries and officials.
FSLOs will first focus on disposing new applications and eventually take charge of their shops to include genuine beneficiaries, cancel bogus and multiple cards by door-to-door inspection to keep PDS list updated," says Harsh Gupta, commissioner, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs.
UPA's impending Food Security Bill, which hopes to cover 70 per cent of the population, has made it imperative for Karnataka to crackdown on bogus cards. Food and Civil Supplies minister Dinesh Gundu Rao has decided to plug massive pilferage by multiple cards and bogus cards. For starters, the department has launched a pilot drive for verification of ration cards and has booked criminal cases against five PDS shopkeepers.
"Zero tolerance to malpractice and exemplary punishment will work as a good deterrent to erring shopkeepers and fake beneficiaries.” said Gupta.
