The Uttar Pradesh government on Sunday made it clear that no new order has been issued in the state regarding surrender or cancellation of ration cards. Refuting the misleading and out-of-fact reports circulated in this regard on the media, State Food Commissioner Saurav Babu said that ration card verification is a normal process which goes on from time to time. He said that baseless publicity is being done regarding surrender of ration card and new eligibility conditions. The truth is that in relation to the eligibility / ineligibility of eligible household ration cards, the norms of the mandate of October 07, 2014 were set, in which no change has been made at present.
He also clarified that no card holder can be declared ineligible on the basis of having a pucca house, electricity connection, sole weapon license holder, motor cycle owner, poultry/cow rearing under the government scheme. Similarly, in the National Food Security Act-2013 and the prevailing mandates, no system like recovery from ineligible card holders has been prescribed and no instructions have been issued from the government level or from the Food Commissioner’s office regarding recovery.
It is noteworthy that the department always issues new ration cards to the eligible card holders according to their eligibility and from April 1, 2020 till now, a total of 29.53 lakh new ration cards have been issued by the department to the eligible beneficiaries in the state.