JK govt mulls making Aadhaar must for food grain supply

Srinagar, Jul 3: Jammu and Kashmir government is mulling making Aadhaar registration compulsory for getting food grains from the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs department from next month.

"Government is mulling to make beneficiaries' Aadhaar registration mandatory from next month to ensure that only deserving people receive various government benefits.

"Those who fail to provide their Aadhaar details to the department by next month would not be provided with food grains," Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs (FCS&CA) Minister Choudhary Zulfkar Ali said. Chairing a meeting to review the progress made on electronic public distribution system (ePDS) here, the minister said measures are afoot to not let anyone take undue benefits.

"FCS&CA beneficiaries by registering their Aadhaar details with the department will help the department to make the system more transparent and weed out any irregularity," he said. The minister appealed the beneficiaries to come forward and register their Aadhaar details with the department so the benefits of government schemes reach to the intending and deserving only.

Directing the FCS&CA officers to expedite the registration of beneficiaries with their Aadhaar details, Ali said the increment of all concerned assistant directors would depend on the success of registration process.

"Everyone has to chip in with their efforts to make the process a success. The aim should be to achieve hundred per cent Aadhaar seeding of ration cards," he said. The meeting was informed that out of around 28 lakh ration cards in the state, so far, 2,634 ration cards have been seeded in the Kashmir division.

The department has started online allocation of food grains, besides online file tracking system was launched on the scheduled date of July 1, an official spokesman said. He said the department's control room would be inaugurated by next week, besides, the recruitment of data entry operators would be completed by July 15.

PTI