Hyderabad: As the Telangana government is dilly-dallying on giving away the ration cards, ration dealers have become law unto themselves and have started printing the cards with private printers and distributing them to beneficiaries, charging '50 each.
In their overzealous to please the government, the colour of the fake ration card is pink, which is associated with the ruling TRS party.
To make the whole thing look like genuine, the cards are printed in Telugu and words National Food Security Card, by which name the ration card is known in the state under the National Food Security Act, is written. Finally, the official logo of the Telangana government is also imposed on it.
Using their muscle power, they are asking the PDS beneficiaries to buy them.
They even threaten discontinuation of the ration if the cards are not procured.
The dealers have also done their spadework before coming out with their own version of the ration card. The illegal card also has Aadhaar details, house number and the address.
Complaints have been reported from the undivided Warangal, Mahbubnagar and Adilabad districts. The civil supplies department has taken note of the matter; and has asked districts officials to conduct raids to seize the fake ration cards. After the formation of Telangana in June 2014, the government decided to cancel all the cards issued in the undivided AP.
Interestingly, the state government made an attempt to distribute new ration cards. In fact, they were even printed. However, the Centre took objection to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is picture on its top. The state government was forced to backtrack and finally decided on the government’s logo instead of the CM’s photo.
Knowing the importance of the ration card, the government changed the design and started printing itself. However, the creation of new districts in October 2016 played the spoilsport and the move got stuck there.
