Hyderabad, February 15: Officials have not issued new pink ration cards to the Above Poverty Line (APL) families in the district. Following the directions of state government, officials received applications for new white ration cards from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families only during the Rachchabanda programme.
There are 61,000 pink cards in the district with cardholders not being allowed to get subsidy rice, sugar and kerosene. They can get only palm oil and red gram from fair price shops. The ration card, either white or pink, is used for identity and residence proof purposes in various official documents.
Due to this, people are interested in ration cards. Usually, government employees possess pink ration cards. Reportedly, ineligible persons have also got white ration cards seeking health insurance coverage with the Rajiv Arogyasri scheme.
The district administration cancelled 37,296 white ration card after identifying them as bogus ones. Those who lost cards sought new pink cards.
As many as 1.54 lakh families applied for new ration cards during the recently completed Rachchabanda programme. Reportedly, officials refused to take applications for pink cards during during the programme.
Nizamabad revenue divisional officer N. Narsing Rao said that they had allowed people to apply for new ration cards during the Rachchabanda programme. As per government directions, we will issue only white ration cards to eligible persons, he said.
There is no question of issuing pink ration cards at present, he made it clear.
The RDO suggested that people can take Aadhar cards instead of pink ration cards. A DPL centre was already set up in Nizamabad to issue Aadhar cards, he explained.
District supply officer (DSO) B. Pandu said that government was giving priority to issue white ration cards to eligible persons.
There is no restriction to issue pink ration cards too, he said.
“After verifying details of the applicants and eligibility criteria, we will issue the new ration cards,” he added. Usually, people do not bother about pink ration cards, he opined.
–Agencies