Mismatched mobile numbers trouble ration cardholders

Chennai: Thousands of ration cardholders are being made to run from pillar to post due to the sudden withdrawal of e-PoS machines from public distribution system (PDS) shops, introduced for linking of their ration cards to their Aadhaar cards.

Cardholders claim that mismatched entry of mobile numbers with cardholder details on these e-POS machines have led to them not being able to link the cards.

A number of people who chose to get it registered at through e-PoS machines in PDS shops, to their shock were not able to use their phone numbers to find details of their registered ration card details.

“Just before Pongal, the state civil supplies department withdrew e-PoS machines without even informing the consumers. We are not able to link our cards, as the cardholders’ mobile numbers weren’t entered correctly. PDS shop staff is asking us to visit, the assistant commissioner’s office to get the details rectified and the latter is asking us to go to Internet centres,” said Roy Rozario, general secretary, People’s Voice.

He added that around 7,000 people in Avadi and around 10,000 in Ambattur are facing the issue. He continued, “The civil supplies office can’t find any record of the ration cardholders details on their system and instead of helping us correct the wrong details, they are asking us to visit the nearest Internet centre.”

“There has been an error in entering the e-registration number of the cardholder details. When one person enters the e-reg number, it is displaying details of someone else. Now most of the cards are blocked, and neither the PDS staff nor department officials are helping people,” said T. Sadagopan, president of TN Progressive Consumer Centre.

Officials at the civil supplies department, however, declined the claim that consumers were not helped by staff to rectify their details.

“We are getting a number of consumers every day who getting their details changed. We are in the process of verification of consumers to ensure that the cards are not bogus,” said an officer at the commissioner of civil supplies, Ezhilagam.

“Over 70 per cent of the process is completed. The remaining will be finished soon and the cards will be unblocked.” To move from ration cards to smart cards, the state government had mandated the integration of Aadhaar card with ration card details, an exercise which was supposed to be over by December 2016, but was inordinately delayed, and thus leading to a number of blocked ration cards.