Doorstep delivery of ration gets Delhi cabinet approval
NEWDELHI: The Delhi government on Tuesday approved doorstep delivery of ration to eligible beneficiaries, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal announced, adding that the scheme will be fully implemented in the next six-seven months.
“The Delhi cabinet today cleared the scheme on doorstep delivery of ration. It will be named Mukhyamantri GharGhar Ration Yojana. Under the scheme, ration will be processed, packed and delivered at the doorstep of beneficiaries,” said Kejriwal in a video press briefing.
The CM said the scheme will take another six months to be put in place as that is the time needed to float tenders and engage agencies which would help in implementation.
Kejriwal further said with this scheme the Delhi government will also implement the central government’s ‘one nation, one ration card’ policy, which makes the whole ration system more portable, especially for beneficiaries who migrate between states.
This flagship scheme of the Aam Aadmi Party government has been in the pipeline for more than two years.
Delhi currently has around 7.5 million ration beneficiaries and 2,028 designated fair price shops, government records show.
That ration beneficiaries, the CM said, will have to choose between doorstep delivery and the traditional way of collecting ration from the designated fair price shops. “Those who opt for the doorstep scheme will get processed flour instead of wheat,” said Kejriwal, calling the scheme a “revolutionary step” in governance. He further said, “Along with the doorstep delivery of ration scheme, we will also implement the central government’s scheme of one nation one ration card.”
The Delhi government was supposed to launch the doorstep ration delivery scheme in March 2018 but could not do so because of administrative issues. “Later, in 2019, the government initiated a pilot project of doorstep delivery in around five (out of 272) municipal wards in the city and some glitches were identified. All issues have been resolved now and we are in a position to launch the scheme at the earliest,” said a senior official in the food and civil supplies department who did not wish to be identified.
The Delhi government, on Monday, directed all fair price shops in the city to update their contact details and Aadhaar number for the doorstep ration delivery scheme to be implemented. The order, which HT has seen, further said the government also plans to re-introduce the electronic point of sales (e-pos) system for ration distribution.
In May, HT published a report saying Kejriwal had directed the food and civil supplies department to restart the Delhi government’s flagship project of doorstep delivery of ration using electronic point of sale (e-pos) devices. The direction came after Union food minister Ram Vilas Paswan wrote to Kejriwal, urging Delhi to implement the Centre’s ‘one nation, one ration card’ policy. ‘The one nation, one ration card’ policy would also ration beneficiaries registered in Delhi to avail ration in other states and vice-versa. Paswan’s letter came at a time when the national capital witnessed large-scale reverse migration of the labour force in the light of the lockdown.