Kakinada Residents Struggle to Get Ration Cards

Kakinada: Many people seeking new ration cards are not eligible as per the six-point formula. In absence of ration cards, they are not getting free medical treatment or free of cost child education under the fee reimbursement scheme.

According to the six-point formula, people who want to get ration cards should not have any car, pensioners should not take pension, the current bill should not exceed 300 units, and they should not have beyond 1,000 sft of land. Even after fulfilling these eligible criteria, they are not able to get ration cards because of legal hurdles.

The court has not cleared the divorce case of a woman separated from her husband and living with her two children. In the household survey, her name is included with his husband and there is no legal document of her divorce. In another case, the parents have a son who is a software engineer, living in the US. The parents could not avail ration card as their son is an income tax payee. But the parents said that their son did not take care of their welfare and even did not phone them. They are living by getting rice, provided by the government on the basis of ration cards and one of the parents is getting a pension. Now they lost their pension and also their ration card.

In yet another case, a husband and wife are living separately due to family disputes for last four years and the wife's name was removed from the ration card at the place where the husband is working. The woman came to her parents’ house. But, she is not able to get a ration card for her livelihood as legally she was not separated from her husband.

Nearly 50 such grievances are received by the Public Grievance Redressal System, conducted by the district collector and the administration with all heads of the departments every Monday. Kakinada district civil supplies officer R. Satyanarayana Raju told Deccan Chronicle that new ration cards can be sanctioned as per the six-point formula,. He said that the ration card application receiving process has already started and a software would be developed in this connection. However, he said that the department was trying to sort out many of the grievances as per law and rules and regulations without doing injustice to the petitioners.

According to an official, if the son is separated from his family without marriage and living in another area, the parents can remove his name from the card as a ‘migrant’’ and get the card. He said that persons who got married, can split from their parents’ family, removing their names from the ration card and get a new ration card.

However, a demand is growing that ration cards should be sanctioned to beneficiaries who are in live-in-relationships. A person said that he did not marry, but is in a live-in-relationship. He wrote a letter to the Central government to sanction a ration card to them including both of the names. He argued that when the Supreme Court has given permission to live-in-relationship, what are the objections that the authorities face in granting ration cards to such a couple.