Hyderabad, January 17: Civil Supplies Minister J Krishna Rao has informed that new ration cards for Below Poverty Line (BPL) families will be issued from first week of March.
He was speaking to reporters after a review meeting with Chief Minister
K Rosaiah on the Public Distribution System, here today. He said that the verification of white ration cards was going on and it would be completed by end of February.
The minister said that in the iris verification, about one crore ineligible persons have been detected out of the 5.60 crore persons whose iris was captured. The technology was gaining significance and departments like Home, registrations and transport were also using it, he explained.
The verification process with iris technology was demonstrated before the Chief Minister today and the details of the cardholder were shown within 30 seconds, Krishna Rao said.
The minister said as the sugar quota from the Centre had decreased from 70,000 tons to 50,000 tons only half kg would be supplied to the cardholders. To control the sugar prices in the future it would be imported and soon global tenders would be called to select the supplier, he said. As far as red gram was concerned it was not available in the market even for Rs 4,500 per quintal and the Marketing Corporation would take up intervention to keep its prices under control.
The kerosene quota was also reduced by the Centre by 20,000 kilo litres and the Government has decided to adjust the same, he informed and added that eight litres would be distributed in Municipal Corporations, four litres in municipalities and mandal headquarters and two litres in villages.
The minister said that gas connections under Deepam scheme were not allotted in the last one and half years and in the next two to three months four lakh connections would be released at a cost of Rs 56 crore.
To come over the scarcity of godowns the department had decided to add about six lakh ton storage capacity and the State Warehousing Corporation would take up creation of one lakh tons and Marketing department would take up the responsibility of creating five lakh tons storage capacity, Krishna Rao said.
In the mandal headquarters, godowns with a capacity of 1,000 tons would be constructed and it would be helpful in converting the fair price shops into village malls, he informed.
——–Agencies