By TC News Desk
Agartala, 4th September 2024: Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs minister on Wednesday informed that the respective department will be starting distribution of Smart Cards or memory-chip inbuilt PVC Cards for the beneficiaries of Public Distribution System (PDS) in September, 2024.
In reply to a joint query raised by CPIM MLAs Asoke Chandra Mitra and Sudip Sarkar on the first day of assembly’s monsoon session, Chowdhury stated “Food Department, Government of Tripura has decided to issue new PVC ration cards in place of old paper ration cards under public distribution system in the state. The department has already selected a company through e-tendering to print these PVC cards. It is expected that the issuance of PVC ration cards will be started from September, 2024.”
“In this case, those families whose Aadhaar of all members have been ‘e-KYC’ on their ration cards will be issued PVC ration cards in the first phase. The rest will be issued new ration cards after all family members are ‘e-KYC. Notably, printing a new ration card, it is important to have the necessary information of the family members such as name, age, gender and address correct in the ration card, which can be confirmed through ‘e-KYC’ verification. Several initiatives have been taken by the department to ‘e-KYC’ Aadhaar by scanning the fingerprints of all ration card holders in the state at the ration shops on EPS machines. But despite that, a significant number of ration card holders are still left with ‘e-KYC,” he stated.
Moreover, minister said that special drive for “e-KYC” verification has been given by the department. “In this regard, several circulars have been issued by the department through print media to inform the excluded consumers to visit the concerned ration shop and get Aadhaar “e-KYC”. It is expected that within the next 05-06 months it will be possible to issue new PVC ration cards to all families by completing this verification work”, Minister informed the house.
