Assam Implements One Nation One Ration Card Scheme

Assam has become the 36th state to implement the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme.

With this, the ONORC plan is successfully implemented in all 36 states and Union Territories (UT) making food security portable throughout the country.

During the last two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, the ONORC plan has significantly contributed to ensuring subsidized foodgrains for National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries, especially migrant beneficiaries.

This is a one-of-its-kind citizen-centric initiative in the country, which is swiftly implemented in a short span of time covering about 80 Crore beneficiaries, after being initiated in August 2019, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said in a statement today.

The objective of this beneficiary centric high-impact program is to empower all NFSA beneficiaries to become AtmaNirbhar for their food security anywhere in the country, through the portability of their existing ration cards enabling them to seamlessly lift their entitled subsidized foodgrains (in part or full) from any Fair Price Shop of their choice.

About 64 crore portable transactions have been recorded during the Covid-19 period itself delivering foodgrains equivalent to about Rs 36,000 crore in food subsidy through portability.

Additionally, as a key indicator, presently a monthly average of about three crores portable transactions are being recorded, delivering the subsidised NFSA and free PMGKAY foodgrains with anywhere flexibility to the beneficiaries.

Another dimension under the ONORC plan is the ‘Mera Ration’ mobile application which has been rolled out to take maximum advantage of the ONORC plan. The mobile app is providing a host of useful real time information to the beneficiaries and is available in 13 languages.

Also Read: Assam Floods: 7 More Persons Dead, Death Toll Spikes to 88