Trichy: As many as 16,000 ration cards in the district could be declared bogus as they have not been linked with Aadhaar yet. Officials said cardholders have failed to turn up at respective ration shops despite repeated reminders, forcing them to consider this step.“The process of linking Aadhaar with ration cards revealed that over 16,000 cardholders have not linked their unique identification number (UID) with ration cards in the drive that has been going on for the past several months from 2016. The linking process is still on. If they want to link it, they can do it at their respective fair price shops. Otherwise, they [cards] will be deemed bogus after a certain period as per the advice from our department,” district supply officer (DSO) M Velumani told TOI.The consumer protection and civil supplies department began the process of linking Aadhaar to ration cards in July 2016. They also updated the mobile numbers of the card holders to send the bills through SMSes to replace the paper billsUntil a couple of months back, the number of ration cards not linked with Aadhaar stode at 90,000. However, after the linking drive commenced in full-fledged manner, nearly 75,000 cardholders have completed the process. “Follow-up by the staff at ration shops is a reason for linking majority of left-out card holders. The reason behind 16,000 cardholders not linking Aadhaar is not known,” said DSO Velumani.As of now, there are 7,55,056 consumers under 1,213 ration shops in the district. On April 1, the district received 30,275 smart cards for which OTPs were sent to the consumers. On April 12, around 2.25 lakhs smart cards were dispatched to Trichy from Chennai. The cards for the rest of the consumers are expected to be received at regular intervals.However, smart cards will not be issued to those who fail to link their Aadhaar. Likewise, around 1 lakh members under linked cards are also yet to update the ration card with respective Aadhaar. The plan to reduce the quantity of the goods supplied to such members is also on the cards.It may be recalled that the civil supplies department brought down the quantity of kerosene by one lakh litres in 2015 after blocking a large number of bogus ration cards through 100 % verification method at all ration shops.