In West Bengal, Families Are Going Hungry due to fault in Linking of Aadhaar to Ration Card
The inhabitants of Patiraj Gura village, Binpur No 2 block, Jangalmahal of West Bengal are going through a technology curse for the last two months. To understand the background of this peculiar scenario, let us know the fact that the Indian Government announced that ‘The Aadhar Card’ (Aadhaar is a verifiable 12-digit identification number issued by ‘Unique Identification Authority of India’) is mandatory for everyone to link with various schemes and instruments.
This linking has already helped the government to plug a lot of leakage in the distribution of subsidies through Direct Benefit Transfer - it involves transferring the subsidy amount and other benefits (called transfers) directly to the beneficiaries' bank accounts instead of providing it through government offices.
The villagers of Patiraj Gura, comprising mostly landless and daily wage labourers, are in dire situation due to a technical glitch of this mechanism. Their Digital Ration Cards are out of sync with the database, resulting in showing error for distribution. They are impoverished and rely heavily on Government schemes for their food.
With the Community Correspondent Ranjit Pal, they had approached the Block Development Officer. The Block development Officer is in touch with the Department of Food and Supplies, West Bengal, and this issue will be resolved soon, he assured.
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