TN State government approves the printing of smart ration cards in all districts
Posted on: 15/May/2019 11:16:38 AM
The state government of Tamil Nadu has decided to undertake the printing of the electronic smart family cards in all the districts. For this purpose, the state government of Tamil Nadu has ordered the procurement of 35 electronic smart family card printing machines (4 in the Chennai Metro City and 1 for each district). The state government of Tamil Nadu has also allotted funds for this procurement.
The system of using the smart family ration cards (in place of the old family ration cards) has been in practice since last year for buying the ration grocery items and others. So far, 2.03 Crores families have been given the smart family ration cards.
There has been a gradual daily increase in the number of applications received for getting the smart family card. The arrangements for the issue has been made in the official website of the Tamil Nadu State Government Department of food items: www.tnpds.gov.in.
Due to the restrictions imposed by the Election Commission, the process of scrutinising the applications for issue of new smart family cards have been stopped temporarily.
The officials of PDS (Public Distribution System) have informed that the new smart family rations cards will be printed and issued after the counting of votes in the recent parliamentary elections.
In this situation, all problems related to the printing of the new smart family ration cards have been resolved.
In this regard, the officials of PDS (Public Distribution System) have informed:
The issue of new smart family ration cards will commence in the next 10 days. Separate approval for this purpose has not been obtained from the Election Commission. As only a few more days are left, the permission for exemption has not been sought from the Election Commission.
As the new applications are quite large in numbers, the process of scrutiny of the applications will commence after the elections.
Up till now, the issue of smart family ration cards has been done through the machines set up in the Chennai Metro City. Now, a decision has been taken to provide electronic smart family ration cards printing machines to each state. The Tamil Nadu State Government Department of Food has recommended 1 printing machine each for 31 districts and 4 machines for the Chennai Metro City. The state finance department has approved this recommendation to procure the machines.
Subsequently, after the counting of votes gets completed, the printing machines will be procured by the end of May.
Providing the districts with the electronic smart family ration card d machines will facilitate quicker and simple means of providing the new smart family ration cards to the cardholders and further, all corrections/deletion activities can also be undertaken in the district itself.
