Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Supply stopped for 1.30 lakh family cards

Coimbatore: The district administration has issued stop supply orders to 1,30,799 family cards under the Public Distribution System (PDS), District Collector, V. Palanikumar has said.

Reviewing the functioning of the PDS with officials from Civil Supplies Corporation, Cooperation Department and District Supply Officials, Mr. Palanikumar said that as on July 1, 2008, a total of 15,24,287 family cards were in use.

Following complaints that a number of them were not genuine cards, Government ordered for a 100 per cent door-to-door field verification in Coimbatore as a pilot district in the State. From July 1, the door to door verification was in progress and 3,078 staff were used for the verification which went on till August 20.

The verification report said that 2,09,362 cards were not genuine. The report said that these card holders were not residing in the addresses mentioned therein. To ensure that genuine beneficiaries were not penalised, the administration gave them time till November 7 to file their representation. The lists of such cards were displayed at the respective PDS outlets.

The 1,708 PDS outlets in the district received 78,563 appeals stating that they were genuine card holders and their names had been listed as not genuine erroneously in the field verification. These cards have now been exempted and stop supply orders have been issued since last month in respect of 1,30,799 cards. These cards have not been completely cancelled and there had been no orders to that effect from the Government as well. Officials will conduct inquiries about the genuineness of such representations.

In respect of new cards, the officials have been instructed to adhere to the guidelines and government orders in respect of applicants seeking new cards. The applications should be processed and the new cards should be provided within 60 days. During the current year till October 1, 2008, a total of 67,383 applications were received seeking new family cards and on inquiries in respect of 49,986 applications the authorities have classified 18,907 applications as false claims and have been rejected.

The remaining eligible applications have been processed and printing of family cards are underway at the district itself. So far, 17,684 cards have been issued. A total of 6,785 applicants have been intimated by post cards to collect their cards. The remaining 17,397 applications would be subjected to field verification. The list of printed cards ready for distribution are available at the respective PDS outlets.

The Collector has asked the supply officials, Food Cell CID officials and others to maintain vigil to prevent smuggling of essential commodities across the border and those found guilty of such offences would be detained under Goondas Act. Collector asked LPG distributors to refrain from compelling consumers to buy gas hot plates or other consumer durables in order to get their LPG connection or refills.

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