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New Delhi: The One-Nation-One-Ration Card facility, which had started as inter-state portability of ration cards in four states in August 2019, has been extended to 20 States/Union Territories with effect from June 2020, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution stated here on Saturday.
Hence now, this facility is currently enabled for National Food Security Act (NFSA) card-holders in 20 States/UTs. These States/UTs are Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Sikkim, Mizoram, Telangana, Kerala, Punjab, Tripura, Bihar, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The ministry informed that trial and testing in four more States/UTs of Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland and Uttarakhand had been completed for enabling national portability features under One Nation One Ration Card in these states very shortly. Besides, the required web-services for inter-State transactions and their monitoring through Central Dashboards have also been activated for these States/UTs. All other States/UTs are targeted to be integrated before March 2021.
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The One-Nation-One-Ration Card facility is an ambitious plan and endeavour of Department of Food & Public Distribution to ensure the delivery of food security entitlements to all beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, irrespective of their physical location anywhere in the country, by implementing nationwide portability of ration cards under the ongoing central sector scheme on ‘Integrated Management of Public Distribution System (IM-PDS)’ in association with all States/UTs.
Through this system, the migratory NFSA beneficiaries, who frequently change their place of dwelling in search of temporary employments, etc. are now enabled with an option to lift their entitled quota of foodgrains from any Fair Price Shop (FPS) of their choice anywhere in the country by using their same/existing ration card with biometric/Aadhaar based authentication on an electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) device installed at the FPSs.
Thus, installation of ePoS devices at the FPSs and Aadhaar seeding of beneficiaries for biometric/ Aadhaar authentication are the main enablers of this system, which can be accessed by beneficiaries by quoting either their ration card number or the Aadhaar number to any FPS dealer across the country. “Anyone in the family, who have seeded Aadhaar in the ration card can undergo authentication and lift the ration. There is no need to share or carry the ration card or Aadhaar card with ration dealer to avail the benefit. Beneficiaries can undergo Aadhaar authentication by using their fingerprints or iris based identification,” the ministry stated.
– globalbihari bureau
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