Belthangady: There seems to be no end to the problems faced by the common man with the Public Distribution Systems (PDS) despite innumerable measures taken by the government. Only difference this time being, the problem occurred in the native district of Food and Civil supplies (FCS) minister, U T Khader.
Widespread public anger and outrage was witnessed when people found their ration cards not linked to Aadhar numbers in Belthangady and expressed total dissatisfaction against the system on which they rely for survival. The Food and Civil supplies department had cancelled many ration cards which were not linked to Aadhar numbers and had given an opportunity to correct the errors. In some cases, the numbers were not linked and in other cases, the names of family members were missing.
People from distant villages including Neriya, Arambodi, Ilanthila, Padangadi and Kokkada had flocked at the FCS office at 9 am in the morning to rectify the errors in consultation with the department officials.
In few cases where ration cards were linked to Aadhar, the names of family members were missing. The food department had cancelled all the ration cards even if one of the family member’s name was found missing and had asked the people to enter the missing names at the Gram Panchayat office. However, people accused the authorities of forcing them to run between Gram Panchyat and Food department with no clear guidelines.
After the intervention of local leaders, coupons with serial numbers were issued to people. Even that did not work as authorities cited lack of adequate infrastructure in terms of number of computers, staff and slow network connectivity.
People deprived of monthly ration never found solace at the end of the day and were seen cursing the officials who were forcing them to appear in the office the next morning.
Some people who waited for hours in the scorching sun without food and water got coupons at the end with the intervention from area tahsildar Tippeswamy, but most problems remained unsolved.
