Hyderabad: Officials of the civil supplies department informed Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao that there was a total of 1.47 crore ration cards in Telangana of which 91.94 lakh were white ration cards and 15.07 lakh were pink. However, the total households in the state, as per Census 2011, were only 84.20 lakh. Besides, there were another 41 lakh Antyodaya cards (green cards) issued by the Centre since 2000 to provide 35 kg of rice and wheat at Rs 3 and Rs 2 respectively.
Mr Rao pointed out that there was an excess of 22 lakh ration cards when compared with the total households in the state, which clearly proved the existence of bogus cards on a large scale. He wondered why pink cards were being issued when they did not serve any purpose for obtaining subsidised food items. Officials informed him that they served as address proofs and the demand for these cards was more in cities where there was large-scale migration of people from villages and it was the only valid document available for them.
However, Mr Rao said that since Aadhaar cards were already issued, there was no need to continue with the existing pink cards or issue new ones. He asked officials to issue fresh white cards with the Telangana logo to weed out existing bogus cards since the government was spending nearly Rs 1,800 crore per annum on supplying subsidised food items. He said the burden was expected to increase by another Rs 1,000 crore if the National Food Security Act was implemented.
