Times of India: Coimbatore: Thursday, March 28, 2013.
Applicants
for new ration cards in Coimbatore are a disgruntled lot as they have been
waiting for months together to receive their cards. A response to an RTI query
has revealed that the situation is the same across the state.
The latest
information from the Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department in
Chennai has revealed that a total of 1,39,892 applications for new ration cards
are pending as on December 31, 2012. Three months later, the figure is expected
to have crossed 1.5lakh. Activist R P Senthil Kumar, a member of Coimbatore
Consumer Cause, says the state had issued a total of 1,95,85,080 ration cards
as on December 31, 2012.
"Of
this, 1,84,07,815 are rice cards, 10,54,252 are sugar cards, 62,087 are police
cards and 60,926 are no commodity cards," said K Kallimuthu, Public
Information Officer.
Reply to
another RTI application filed by the activist stated that as many as 15038
applications for new ration cards are pending in Coimbatore district as on
February 9, 2013. As on December 31, 2012, Coimbatore district had issued a
total of 1030198 ration cards, including 942012 rice cards, 77251 sugar cards,
7388 no commodity cards, 3383 police cards and 164 ration cards for forest
staff. This figure also includes 597457 ration cards for Coimbatore
Corporation.
The DSO said
that between January 1, 2011 and February 9, 2013, a total of 35364 ration
cards were issued, which includes 32974 rice cards, 1932 sugar cards, 206 no
commodity cards, 236 police cards and 16 ration cards for forest staff. K
Kathirmathiyon, secretary of Coimbatore Consumer Cause said that process of
issuing new ration cards should be expedited.
An inquiry
into the matter revealed that for majority of the applications field
verification was complete and new ration cards were in the process of being
issued after stringent checks. "Weeding out bogus cards and pasting
renewal slips in existing cards has delayed the processing of new ration
cards," an official said.
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