One nation, one ration card: 9 states can raise Rs 23,523 cr from markets

These nine states have received permission from Union finance ministry to raise additional funds from the markets as they have implemented the 'one nation, one ration card' reform

Nine states have implemented one nation one ration card system because of which they together got permission from the union finance ministry to borrow Rs 23,523 crore from the markets.

These states include Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh. The finance ministry hopes that many more states will do so by the deadline of this calendar year end.

In view of the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic for mobilisation of financial resources, the Centre gave permission to states to borrow an additional amount of up to two per cent of their respective gross state domestic product (GSDP). However, to ensure long-term debt sustainability and prevent any adverse impact on future, a part of the additional borrowing was linked to the states carrying out reforms in the sectors critical for service delivery to the citizens.

One of the sectors identified for reforms is the public distribution system. Out of the additional borrowing limit of two per cent of GSDP, 0.25 per cent is linked to implementation of “one nation one ration card system”.  

This was aimed to ensure that the beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and other welfare schemes, especially the migrant workers and their families, get ration from any fair price shop (FPS) across the country. Other aims of the intended reform were to better target beneficiaries, elimination of bogus, duplicate or ineligible ration cards to reduce leakage. For this, the reform conditions stipulated Aadhar seeding of all ration cards, biometric authentication of beneficiaries and automation of all the fair price shops (FPS) in the state.

In addition to this, other reforms specified as a precondition to avail additional borrowing are reforms related to ease of doing business, urban local bodies, and power sector.

With Uttar Pradesh being the biggest state in terms of GSDP, it was granted permission to borrow Rs 4,851 crore followed by Guarjat at Rs 4,352 crore.