PANAJI
An extension of the March 31 deadline permitted by the Centre is the only saving grace for nearly 1.5 lakh families in Goa who have failed to comply with the e-KYC norms for the public distribution system (PDS) ration cards.
Civil Supplies Department sources said despite intensive campaigns across the State, only 3.28 lakh of the 4.78 lakh families who hold ration cards, which works out to just 68.73% have updated their details digitally and complied with the e-KYC norms.
Civil supplies director Jayant Tari meanwhile said, that the department has been extremely proactive in ensuring e-KYC compliance by ration card holding households and has so far managed to achieve close to 70 per cent compliance.
For almost a year, the department's inspectors have been organising outreach programmes to get the beneficiary families to update their KYC details digitally. During this year, the Centre has also extended the deadline to do so multiple times, Tari said.
He added that they will persist with the efforts to achieve maximum compliance until the Centre issues a final deadline before the drastic step of cancelling ration cards and consequently the benefit of monthly quotas of foodgrains (rice and wheat).
Nationally, ration cards of close to 6-crore families are already cancelled after it had been conclusively proved that that these were 'fake' but food rights campaigners in the country have sharply criticised the move.
Meanwhile Tari said e-KYC camps will be conducted frequently in the State to achieve high compliance.
He also said that compliance levels among Above Poverty Line (APL) ration card holding families is extremely low and below 50%. Of the 5.93 lakh beneficiaries in the APL category, only 2.85 lakh which works out to 43.5% have complied with e-KYC norms, he added.
