Bhubaneswar: Odisha State Food Commission (OSFC) has pulled up Collectors for slow progress in deleting the names of deceased beneficiaries from various food security schemes.
In a letter to all district magistrates (DMs), OSFC chairperson Ranglal Jamuda, said, “It is a matter of serious concern that some districts are not sincere in detecting the dead persons in the ration cards and first priority lists (FPL). Consequently, as a matter of routine, ration is being issued in favour of such dead persons at the cost of the households in the waiting list for the last so many months.”
During the quarter ending September 2018, he said, “Not a single dead person, from among the beneficiaries, was detected in four districts—Bargarh, Jharsuguda, Malkangiri and Rayagada.”
Similarly, names of the deceased have not been deleted from the ration card list in Cuttack, Ganjam, Kandhamal, Khurda and Nayagarh districts, Jamuda pointed out.
The chairperson expressed displeasure over the work of Rayagada district, where the Collector has reported that they have deleted names of 1,923 persons even when not a single death case was reported during the last quarter.
Notably, the Commission had asked all the Collectors to ensure deletion of around 3 lakh dead persons by September. In the state, around 1,30,116 death cases have been detected during the quarter ending September, 2018 as against 1,53,365 detections during the previous quarter.
“The process should be accelerated and by the end of November 2018 at least 2 lakh dead persons should be deleted with a view to include all the households in FPL instead of allowing them to continue for an indefinite period under draft FPL,” the chairperson instructed the DMs. The DMs were also directed to dispose of all ration card applications pending as on October 1, 2018 and all those received during this month by November end.
