Bengaluru, Aug 13: Continuing reforms in the food and civil supplies department, minister UT Khader has promised to deliver ration cards within seven days, cutting the waiting time from the current 6 to 12 months.
"If passports can be processed and delivered to people in less than a month in Karnataka then why can't we issue ration cards faster than passports?" Khader had asked.
"It is possible, we will work towards it," said Harsh Gupta, principal secretary, food and civil supplies department.
Mr Khader has decided to replicate the model successfully adopted by the Regional Passport Office (RPO), Bengaluru.
RPO Bengaluru was declared the best one in the country last year and passport officer PS Karthigeyan won accolades for the transformation.
RPO (Bengaluru) issued 5.24 lakh passports in 2014 and 6.18 lakh passports in 2015. The appointment cycle was brought down to two to four working days from the previous four to six months. Even the police verification system was reduced to 26 days as against the national average of 34 days.
Gupta said: "The process of issuing ration cards had become cumbersome and time consuming though it was supposed to be simple. Now we will bring ration cards under the Sakala scheme, which ensures time-bound services under the Karnataka Sakala Services Act, 2011. We are looking at delivering ration cards within seven working days."
To facilitate this, Gupta said the government will delegate the powers to food inspectors and officials at the taluk level to distribute ration cards after verification.
"There are 200 food inspectors across the state and they are overburdened. We want the panchayat development officers to be given the power to issue ration cards. Since there are over 6,000 panchayat development officers, ration card distribution can be fast-tracked."
The ration card applications will be taken on the basis of the people's Aadhaar numbers. On being approved, the ration cards will be dispatched to the applicants' homes.
Comments
I had been to \Mangalore One\" branch for applying ration card and they asked me to get voter id and ration cards of every members of my family!
Is this the rule of the state government or by the agency?
And when I went to apply the voter id card, they are asking to bring ration card!!!"
The PDO's are appointed on cast and reservation, some of them are not crossed the age of 25 and not eligible for a clerical post. We don't expect speedy and efficient work from PDO's. Need of the hour is replace this officers with experienced qualified ones to administrate at Panchayats ( grass root level).
Jai Hind
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