Parliament Parliamentary Committee
6.8 crore ration cards weeded out between 2013 and 2025
The Standing Committee on Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution examined the modernisation of the Public Distribution System (PDS) and its technical database to ensure efficient delivery of food subsidies to citizens.
6.8 croreThe Committee noted that 6.8 crore ration cards were weeded out between 2013 and 2025.
Who it concerns: Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution; State/UT governments; Fair Price Shop operators; PDS beneficiaries (including elderly, manual labourers, and eligible households currently excluded).
What the committee found
- Committee noted progress: digitisation of 20.5 crore ration cards (80 crore beneficiaries), 99.8% Aadhaar seeding, automation of 5.5 lakh fair price shops, and nationwide portability.
- Committee identified 2.91 crore suspect beneficiaries (including 2.2 crore inactive cards, 30 lakh duplicates, 34 lakh deceased, and 5.6 lakh aged over 100) and recommended time-bound verification drives to remove them and include left-out eligible households.
- Committee flagged operational challenges such as biometric failures for elderly/labourers, poor network connectivity, and pending grievance redressal, recommending states prepare time-bound reform agendas with quarterly central reviews.
- Committee recommended the Department prepare a focused action plan for no-network/difficult-terrain shops to ensure reliable offline sync and alternate authentication modes.
- Committee recommended that SMART-PDS core components be made functional across all states/UTs in a standardised manner, focusing on multilingual accessibility, field-level usability, real-time grievance redressal, and route optimisation acceptance.
- Committee recommended a structured comparative assessment of the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) model in Chandigarh, Puducherry, and Dadra & Nagar Haveli before considering wider replication.
- Committee recommended expanding the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot for subsidy delivery to enhance transparency and reduce leakages.
Also in the document
- The Committee noted that 6.8 crore ration cards were weeded out between 2013 and 2025.
- The Committee observed that approximately 79 lakh beneficiaries could still be added to the PDS, as the current count is below the National Food Security Act ceiling of 81.35 crore.
- The Committee noted that 99.6% of Fair Price Shops are automated with ePoS systems, but connectivity issues persist.
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The original document
Parliamentary Standing Committee reports (via PRS Legislative Research)
Committee report · Ref. modernisation-of-public-distribution-system-strengthening-technical-database
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