Scheme ensures ration access across States; four Goan families avail benefits elsewhere
PANAJI
It is not 'Omkar' the elephant alone who strays beyond the borders of Maharashtra and settles in Goa for a while. Like the sometimes friendly other times boisterous tusker, several people from the same Sindhudurg district too make Goa a temporary home.
According to civil supplies department officials, 18 families from Sindhudurg pick their monthly quotas of ration from fair price shops in Goa.
Another 15 families from Kholapur do the same and in all 119 families from Maharashtra avail their monthly rations from Goan fair price shops.
This has been possible under the 'One Nation, One Ration Scheme' launched by the Centre which allows beneficiaries to use their ration cards issued in their states to buy rations in another, anywhere in the country.
The officials said under this scheme, a person from any other State can come and avail rations from fair price shops in Goa with a card issued by their own native State. Similarly, Goans can do the same in any other State they move to temporarily using their Goan ration card.
Only AAY and PHH card holders who are covered under the National Food Security Scheme (NFSA) are eligible for this 'One Nation, One Ration' though. Above poverty line (APL) ration card holders are not eligible.
No specific formality like separate registration is necessary. They can just bring their ration cards from their home State and directly pick up their monthly ration quota from the fair price shops anywhere in Goa, the officials said.
Meanwhile, of the 119 ration card holders from Maharashtra who lift their rations here, 69 of them do so from fair price shops in South Goa and 50 in the North.
Apart from Kholapur and Sindhudurg, people from remote Maharashtrian districts like Yavatmal, Latur, Jalgaon, Nanded, Beed, Akola and Ahmednagar also use the scheme to pick rations in Goa.
On the flip-side, four Goan families who have ration cards issued here, pick their monthly rations from fair price shops in other States – three from North Goa and one from the South.
These Goan families pick their rations in Maharashtra, Kerala and Gujarat.
