Centre says 2.35 crore ineligible or duplicate beneficiaries deleted nationwide
Raja Syed Rather
Srinagar, Aug 05 :
As many as 43,183 beneficiaries have been deleted in Jammu and Kashmir under the Centre’s “Rightful Targeting” exercise aimed at identifying and removing ineligible and duplicate beneficiaries from the National Food Security Act (NFSA) database.
The figures were provided by Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Nimuben Jayantibhai Bambhaniya in a written reply to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 2884, raised by Dr Kirsan Namdeo, regarding the adequacy of foodgrain coverage under the NFSA.
The Centre, as reported by the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), said the NFSA provides coverage of up to 75 per cent of the rural population and up to 50 per cent of the urban population, amounting to 81.35 crore persons as per the 2011 Census. Against the intended coverage, States and Union Territories have identified 79.08 crore beneficiaries, leaving scope for identification of another 2.27 crore eligible beneficiaries.
In Jammu and Kashmir, the annexure to the Lok Sabha reply shows that 43,183 beneficiaries were deleted through the Rightful Targeting exercise. The exercise is based on Aadhaar and Public Distribution System (PDS) data analytics to identify duplicate and ineligible beneficiaries.
At the national level, the government said 5.95 crore beneficiaries had been flagged under the exercise, excluding landholding cases, while 2.35 crore beneficiaries had been deleted. The State/UT-wise figures were furnished in the annexure to the reply.
The government said updating of beneficiary databases is a continuous process under which ineligible beneficiaries are deleted, and eligible beneficiaries are added. It has also advised States and UTs to identify eligible poor and vulnerable households for inclusion under the NFSA.
The Centre further said ration card and beneficiary databases have been fully digitised across all States and UTs, while 99.7 per cent of ration cards have been Aadhaar-seeded. It said online grievance-redressal systems and toll-free helplines are operational across the country.
Under the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) system, nationwide portability has been implemented across all 36 States and UTs, with more than 221 crore portability transactions recorded so far, according to the reply—(KNO)