Chennai: Withdrawing its earlier decision on issuing essential commodities at fair price shops only to those with smart cards after March 1, the state government on Sunday said the essentials would be given to all family ration cardholders.
State Food Minister R. Kamaraj said, “It has been misquoted that the essential commodities would not be given to the family ration card holders who don’t possess smart cards from March 1”.
Irrespective of people having smart cards or not, the commodities would be given to them through the public distribution system (PDS). He also said that those without smart cards would be provided with it soon.
Smart cards have been introduced to weed out bogus cards and duplication of names of members, and to ensure the distribution of commodities like rice, wheat, sugar, kerosene and oil reached only the deserving. The digital system facilitates the monitoring of allocation of commodities to PDS outlets and real-time monitoring of the movement of essential commodities from warehouses to outlets.
According to the Minister, errors in the ambitious project of the government were rectified immediately after they were brought to the notice of the officials concerned.
