Ration cards of 189 govt staff cancelled in Mandya

The Food and Civil Supplies department, which is weeding out bogus ration cards, has identified 189 government employees in the district, illegally possessing cards meant for families Below Poverty Line (BPL).

Their cards have been cancelled and the amount equal to the worth of food grains supplied to them all these years is being recovered.

As per the sources, the identified employees are serving in Revenue, Education and other departments. It is said that a majority of them hold the cards in the names of their spouses as the head of the family. Sources said, Mandya taluk topped the list with 55 employees possessing illegal cards, followed by Pandavapura-40, Maddur-32, KR Pet-29, Srirangapatna-14, Maddur-10 and Nagamangala-9.

Besides, 18,109 cards have been cancelled during the verification process. This includes 3,040 from KR Pet taluk, 3,841 from Maddur taluk, 2,459 in Malavalli, 3,710 in Mandya, 1,387 in Nagamangala, 1,373 in Pandavapura and 2,299 cards from Srirangapatna taluk.

The department had informed that the card holders should provide either their voters identity card or Aadhar card to the officials during verification.
The cards of those who failed to abide by the instructions were cancelled.

Online cancellation

In addition, the office of the Food and Civil Supplies commissioner has cancelled 40,403 ration cards through online for failing to provide the required documents to prove their identity. In all, there are 4,93,345 ration card holders in the district, including 20,420 Antyodaya card holders, 4,15,294 BPL and 57,631 APL  (Above Poverty Line) cards. Out of 57,631 APL card holders, only 1,157 families are utilising the cards for purchasing food grains from fair price shops, while others have the cards only for identification purpose.

Speaking to Deccan Herald, Kumuda Sharat, Assistant Director for Food and Civil Supplies, said, “The verification process is underway and more ineligible cards will be cancelled soon.”