Bhubaneswar: With the completion of last date for Aadhaar seeding with ration cards, the state government found that nearly 19 lakh beneficiaries of NFSA have failed to seed their Aadhaar numbers with ration cards. So, the government has decided to stop providing ration to these beneficiaries.

The state government had set September 15 as the deadline for linking of Aadhaar numbers with ration cards under National Food Security Act (NFSA).

According to official sources, after making Aadhaar linkage mandatory to avail food grains under the NFSA, it has come to the government’s notice that 18.67 lakh bogus beneficiaries have availed ration like rice, kerosene and wheat since the implementation of the Act in state. The government is planning to remove the bogus people from the list after making a field check, sources said.

While the highest of 1,79,490 people have not linked Aadhaar numbers with ration cards in Keonjhar district, the number of such people in Jajpur district was 1,16,282, Khurda 1,14,816 and Koraput 1,01,475. Not a single district has achieved 100 per cent target till date.

Speaking to reporters here, Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare (FS&CW) Minister Ranendra Pratap Swain said out of 3.26 crore beneficiaries under NFSA, 97.9 per cent families have linked Aadhaar with ration cards while it is 94.3 per cent when it comes to individual seeding.

The ration card holders, who are terminally ill, extremely old, unable to move outside their homes and unable to go for Aadhaar linking will not be deprived of getting the benefits, he assured.

“We have directed our market intelligence (MI) concerned to certify that they are genuine people and we have assured to provide them with the ration immediately under the Food Security Act even if their cards are without Aadhaar link,” Swain said.

Now, questions are being raised on what action will be taken against officials who are responsible for the loopholes in the scheme and how the looted ration will be recovered.

The state government has transferred names of 10 lakh beneficiaries included under its own State Food Security Scheme (SFSS) to NFSA. As a result, the burden on the state government will come down from this month onwards, said a FS&CW department official.

Over 3.25 crore people have been covered under NFSA while nearly 15 lakh people avail Re 1 per kg rice under SFSS.