'Ration card holders should provide biometrics'

All Below Poverty Line (BPL), Above Poverty Line (APL) and Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) ration card holders should provide their thumb impression at fair price shop between January 1 and 10, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department Deputy Director Gaurav Kumar Shetty said.

The official said there were 1,03,304 BPL card holders in the district and seven kg rice was provided to each member of the family. A total of 28 kg of rice is provided if there are four members in a family, he said.

As many as 6,236 families have AAY cards district and 35 kg of rice is provided to the family per month. There are a total of 25,278 APL card holders in the district, Shetty added.

Madikeri taluk has 24,101 BPL card holders, 11,062 APL card holders and 818 AAY card holders.

In Virajpet, there are 33,612 BPL card holders, 9,258 APL card holders and 3,680 AAY card holders. As many as 45,591 families have BPL cards, 4,958 APL cards and 1,738 families have AAY card holders in Somwarpet taluk.

‘Info on in-eligible persons’

In a press release, the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs department officials have requested the public to provide information about people who have obtained BPL cards though they are ineligible.

Except those who operate commercial vehicles (tractor, Maxicab, taxi) for a living, those who own four-wheelers with white board, families with persons having government jobs, families paying income tax, people living in a different house than mentioned in the ration card, people having more than one ration card, people having ‘D’ land exceeding seven-and-a-half acres, families with an annual income more than Rs 1.20 lakh and families having a pukka house with more than 1,000 square feet area are not eligible to have a BPL card.

Also, cases such as not deleting the names of the dead persons in the ration card may also be brought to the notice of the food department of the taluk office. The identity of the informers will be secret.All ineligible BPL card holders should convert their BPL cards into APL cards before December end, by producing the cards at the taluk office. Else, a fine equivalent to the market rate of the food grains obtained from the fair price shops will be levied on the defaulters, along with criminal complaint, Tahsildar Mahesh said.