Deeksha Sood –
The scheme ‘ONE NATION ONE RATION CARD’ which would allow portability of food security benefits that were to be made available across the country from 1st July 2020.
The main moto of this scheme is that the poor migrant workers will be able to buy subsidised rice and wheat from any ration shop in the country as their ration cards will be linked to their Adharaar card.
Under the scheme it is said that the union of India committed to making sufficient food grains available to the states at highly subsidised price.
The beneficiaries just by showing their Adhaar card can purchase food grains from any ration show in the country.
The origin of the this scheme came from the case in Jharkhand 2020 where a girl was denied to give food grains because her family’s ration card was not linked with their Adhaar card.
The girl died of starvation seeing this sorrowful incident the government came up with this scheme so no one should face such problem in future.
The controversial issue raising in the scheme is that the government stated that the price of food grains will be fixed by the Centre i.e example 2 rupees/per kg and 3 rupees/per kg for the wheat.
This point is critcised by many States stating that this will hamper the choice of state if they want to give any other subsidises to the poor migrants they won’t be able to do this as the this term of the scheme.
Even if the beneficiary moved to state where grains were given free, that person would not be able to access those benefits as they were funded by the state exchequer.
This will not help the poor migrants rather it will be expensive for them. This clause needs to be readdress as many states are giving their opposing view over this.
The Apex Court held last week had observed that all the states must implement the ONE NATION ONE RATION CARD scheme that allows the migrant labourers to get ration benefits from any part of the country, irrespective of the place where their ration card is registered.
