Five more states board ration card portability platform, taking total to 17

Minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution Ram Vilas Paswan approved the integration of five states and union territories, including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, with the National Cluster under the `One Nation One Ration Card’ plan. Twelve states are already onboard the National Cluster, namely - Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Kerala, Karnataka Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana and Tripura.

Reviewing the progress of the implementation of National Portability of ration card holders under the `One Nation One Ration Card’ plan, Paswan took note of the requisite technical readiness of these five new states/UT with the National Cluster.

With this, the facility of national/inter-state portability will be available for nearly 600 million NFSA beneficiaries of 17 states/UT and they may lift their entitled quota of foodgrains from any fair price shop (FPS) of their choice, anywhere in these 17 states/UT by using their same/existing ration card under ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ plan.

The department has shared the necessary guidelines/instructions for the implementation of national portability as also imparted the requisite orientation trainings to the officers/technical teams of these five states/UTs. Further, while informing the 5 new states that required web-services for inter-state transactions and their monitoring through central dashboards have been activated with immediate effect, all 17 states/UTs concerned have been requested to formally commence seamless inter-state/national portability operations in a single cluster from Friday (1 May 2020), or at the earliest, depending upon their on-field readiness.

The centre is trying to expand the reach of national portability under One Nation One Ration Card plan, to the beneficiaries of other states/UTs as per the readiness of respective state/UT governments.