Centre flags 90,000 inactive ration cards in Telangana, govt begins verification drive

Hyderabad: The Centre has raised concerns with the Telangana govt over a significant number of food security card holders (ration card beneficiaries), who are either not availing their monthly public distribution system (PDS) entitlements or doing so inconsistently.
According to official data, nearly 90,000 card holders in Telangana fall into this category.
The Union govt maintains a real-time database of centrally-approved food security cards across all states, which gets updated each time a beneficiary draws subsidised rice or essential commodities from a fair price shop. For every valid transaction, the Centre extends a subsidy on the rice supplied under the National Food Security Act.
In Telangana, the Centre has sanctioned approximately 53 lakh ration cards. However, it has flagged around 90,000 of these as inactive or irregular in usage. Telangana, on its part, has issued over 90 lakh ration cards in total, with the state govt independently bearing the cost of rice for those not covered under the Centre's quota.
In response, the Telangana govt has launched a field-level verification drive to investigate the status of the 90,000 flagged beneficiaries.
Initial findings suggest that some card holders have passed away due to old age or illness, but their cards were never formally cancelled. In other cases, families may have migrated to other states and are potentially drawing rations there under a different card.
"There are instances where individuals are listed on two ration cards, leading to inactivity on one of them," said a senior official from the Telangana Civil Supplies Corporation.
Another common reason cited is the use of ration cards solely for accessing welfare schemes such as Aarogyasri, where holding a ration card is mandatory—even if the individual does not collect rice. Some card holders also claimed they had stopped taking coarse rice, which was the standard offering under the PDS until recently.
"Now that the Congress govt has begun distributing fine rice through fair price shops, we expect many dormant card holders to resume using their cards," the official added.
Once the field verification is completed, the state govt will compile and submit a detailed report to the Centre. Based on the findings, a decision will be made on whether to cancel the cards flagged as inactive or retain them with updates.

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