Agartala, Mar 26 (UNI) The Tripura government has decided to designate 600 fair price shops, operated by various cooperative societies across the state, as model ration shops, said Minister of Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs, Sushanta Chowdhury in the assembly.
He said work has begun to replace the old paper ration cards with new PVC smart ration cards for consumers to further strengthen the public distribution system. To ensure the accuracy of all necessary details of family members, including name, age, gender, and address, which can only be verified through e-KYC authentication before printing the new PVC ration cards.
Initiatives have been undertaken by the department to encourage all ration cardholders in the state to visit their respective ration shops and complete the Aadhaar e-KYC process by scanning their fingerprints on e-PoS machines. This process is now in its final stages.
So far, the e-KYC process has been completed for 26.89 lakh ration consumers in the state, which accounts for 72.7% of the total consumers. The number of consumers covered under the public distribution system in the state is 37.33 lakh, Chowdhury added.
He also informed that the state government has procured 2.25 lakh mt of paddy from farmers since 2018 and has provided them with Rs 445 crore as a support price. Currently, through the joint efforts of the Department of Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs, along with the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, paddy is being regularly procured from farmers at the support price.
In the last Rabi season, 17,000 mt of paddy were purchased from farmers.
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