Correspondent
Bongaigaon, Feb 3: Maximum ration dealers under Public Distribution System (PDS) in Bongaigaon district headquarters have failed to submit the bank account numbers of their customers (ration card holders) to the district office of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs. A local citizen has obtained this information under Right to Information (RTI) Act recently.
Those ration cards which have no bank account numbers are considered as ‘fake’ as per the guidelines of the department, because it is mandatory to have valid account number against each ration card, an official of the department said.
As per the information, 85 of the total 104 ration dealers have failed to submit most of their customers’ bank account number despite repeated instruction given to them by the department. These 85 dealers had kept a total 2,972 ration cards, which are suspected as fake cards, with them without having their account numbers and have been lifting ration items regularly for many years.
Only four out of the 104 dealers have been dealing with genuine card holders in their Fair Price Shops in Bongaigaon and another 15 dealers had surrendered all total 224 cards having no bank account numbers recently, as per information.
The Bongaigaon district office of the department is looking into it seriously and after waiting for a few days, those cards having no bank account numbers will be considered as fake cards, a senior official of the office told The Assam Tribune.
