Portal for homeless, destitute soon to avail free, highly subsidised foodgrain

NEW DELHI: In a bid to enable the

homeless

and destitute to have access to

free

or highly subsidised food grains, the government will soon launch a portal through which NGOs and other civil society organisations could get them registered. The Centre will subsequently send those names to different states to include them in the list of PDS beneficiaries.

“Currently, this section of people who direly deserve this highly subsidised

foodgrain

are unable to get them because they don’t have ration cards and their ration cards cannot be made as they don’t have proof of residence. Making ration cards is a very difficult process and it’s impossible for these most vulnerable sections to get them despite the fact that they should be the first ones to get this entitlement,” said Union food secretary Sudhanshu Pandey.

Participating in a discussion held as a part of the Good Governance Week, Pandey said his ministry has asked the NIC to come up with a “national portal” to collect data of such vulnerable and most deserving people. “The NGOs can help them to register on the portal. We will then ask the states concerned to include them in the beneficiaries list,” he added.

Pandey told TOI that the work on this has started and this will be a big step to take such benefits to the poorest of the poor. He added that once these people are included in the beneficiaries list, they can get subsidised foodgrain from a place of their choice as is the case with ration cards under the ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ scheme.

Sources said the identity of such beneficiaries can be verified by using biometric authentication with the help of point of sale (PoS) machines.

During the pandemic-induced lockdown, the government had come up with the policy to supply 5kg free foodgrain to each person per month who did not have a ration card. But it was discontinued. Currently, the government provides free five kg additional foodgrain per person per month to nearly 81 crore identified beneficiaries under the

National Food Security Act

. They also continue to get the same quantity of rice, wheat and coarse grains at Rs 3, Rs 2 and Rs 1 per kg, respectively.


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