Instructions have been issued to all State/UT Governments to carry out an intensive campaign to eliminate ineligible/bogus ration cards and to take action as per law against the persons found in possession of bogus/fake ration cards and the government staff found responsible for issuing ration cards to ineligible families/persons. As a result of the instructions issued, State/UT Governments have reported from July, 2006 to January, 2010, deletion of 171.91 lakh bogus/ineligible ration cards.

In order to make delivery of services efficient under TPDS and to assess replicability of use of smart cards for this purpose, Government has approved in December, 2008 implementation of a pilot scheme on smart cards based TPDS in Chandigarh and Haryana. Under the scheme, eligible BPL families would be issued smart cards in place of existing ration cards. They will have biometric features of the family members, based on which verification of genuineness of the BPL families will take place and thereafter only the essential commodities would be issued to them from the Fair Price Shop. The Union Territory of Chandigarh Administration and the Government of Haryana has been directed to ensure that smart card based delivery of essential commodities gets completed by December 2010.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution Prof. K.V. Thomas in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.