Almost four-lakh Food Security Cards (FSC) in Telangana state have been cancelled by the civil supplies department after it was found that they are all linked with Aadhaar cards secured in Andhra Pradesh.
The department started the verification process from September 2014 and the identification of duplication process was started 15 days ago by the National Informatics Center (NIC) with the help of specially designed de-duplication software.
Officials found that one-third of cards weeded out were from Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts and three-fourth of the cards were from the remaining eight districts of Telangana. The National Informatics Center’s verification indicated that most of the Hyderabad cards were seeded with Aadhaar cards from Guntur and Krishna districts.
Hyderabad chief rationing officer (CRO) H Bharati said that if there are any genuine card holders in the lists which have been rejected by the department, they would have to submit a declaration form to revoke it again. “We have removed cards of those persons who have one more card at their native places,” she said.
The Telangana government initially found out that the total number of BPL ration cards was more than the existing families and conducted the one-day house-hold survey in the state. Later, the number of ration cards were brought down to 1.03 crore and the name of the card was changed to food security card.