Kalyan 20 September:
The Ration Action Committee has worked hard for various important demands, including the relaunch of the SMS facility, which is essential for transparency by preventing corruption in the ration system. The Ration Action Committee, which has been working at the grassroots level for the last 35 years, is now building its fight on social media, said Vishal Jadhav of the Action Committee.
The Ration Action Committee is demanding a transparent system from the government to address rationing such as grain in the ration system, leakage in the ration system, corruption, fraud of cardholders, ignorance among people about rules, rights, ambiguity. In addition, Jhata started a toll-free helpline 1800-1024-103 in Maharashtra in association with the Rationing Action Committee, a federation working on the issue of rationing. At that time, errors began to appear in the PDS and the ration action committee received more than 1,800 calls to the helpline in three months, Vishal Jadhav said.
In the present situation, grains are not given to citizens in many places. Excuses are often given for not getting the goods. Some citizens do not know what their card is, as per the portability rules, grain can be picked up anywhere in the state. As a result, many people have been cheated.
Earlier, to bring transparency in the ration system, according to the National Food Security Act 2013, members of the Ration Vigilance Committee at the local level were getting information through SMS about how much grain was coming to the shop and when it came to the shopkeeper reached up. Similarly, when the grain reached the shop, it was unloaded under the supervision of the local administrator and the ration vigilance committee. However, both these systems have been discontinued in the last few years. Similarly, ration vigilance committees across the state were dismissed in 2019.
“Our main demand is to improve both systems and re-start in new mediums,” he said. In addition, the SMS system should be reintroduced to increase transparency so that corruption in PDS can be curbed. The Ration Action Committee has also demanded that all card holders should be informed of the arrival of food grains through SMS in their shops.
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