90 pc ration cards cancelled in J''kand genuine: Study

A limited study conducted in 10 of the 24 districts of Jharkhand has found that almost 90 per

cent of ration cards cancelled by the state government three years ago belonged to genuine households.

The study was carried out by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), co-founded by Abhijit Banerjee

and his wife Esther Duflo, both of whom won the Nobel Economics Prize in 2019.

A random sample of nearly 4,000 ration cards that were verified revealed that "just over 10 per cent belonged to

'ghosts', meaning households that could not be traced," it said.

"In 2017, lakhs of ration cards were deleted in Jharkhand without even informing the households concerned,"

claims the study, co-authored by economists Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus and Sandip Sukhtankar.

The study, released to the media here, includes an analysis of the deletion of ration cards between 2016 and 2018

in 10 randomly-selected districts of the state. The then state government had claimed that most of the

cards were "fake', the study says. Quoting a press release of the previous government

dated 27 March 2017, it says, "All the ration cards which have not been linked with Aadhaar number will become null and void

on 5th April...nearly three lakh ration cards have been declared invalid."

On September 22, 2017, the then state government had said in a booklet, "The work of seeding ration cards with

Aadhaar numbers has started. In this process 11.64 lakh fake ration cards have been found.

"Through this, the state government in one year has saved Rs 225 crore which can now be used for the development

of poor people. 99 per cent of ration cards have been seeded with Aadhaar."

The study also said that on November 10, 2017, the food department of the state government had clarified that the

number of deleted ration cards actually stood at 6.96 lakh, and not 11 lakh. The food department called them 'fake'.

The study claims cancellation of ration cards was a trigger for "starvation deaths". It cited the example of an

11-year-old girl Santoshi Kumari who died allegedly of starvation in Simdega district in September 2007.

Her familys ration card had been cancelled due to non-linkage with Aadhaar card.

However, the then BJP government in the state had denied reports of any starvation death in the state.

The study says the 1.44 lakh ration cards scrapped in the randomly-selected 10 districts between 2016 and 2018

constitute about six per cent of all the ration cards in these districts.

Cards not linked with Aadhaar accounted for 56 per cent of the cancelled cards, and nine per cent of the total

ration cards, it says. Jharkhand Planning, Finance, Food and Consumer Affairs

minister Rameshwar Oraon said that verification work was continuing to cancel "duplicate cards" and, if genuine people

did not have cards, their names would be included. "Verification is underway. There are nearly five lakh

doubtful ration cards and many duplicate cards which have never been used to buy foodgrains.

"Names of people who are entitled to cards will be added in the ration card list, including those whose genuine

cards were cancelled. The Food Security Act will be implemented strictly," he said.