Telangana takes up trial run of Centre's ration portability

The Telangana government Friday made a trial run of the Centre's ration portability scheme with beneficiaries from Andhra Pradesh obtaining commodities from a fair price shop at Punjagutta here.

The Centre has decided to start this project on pilot mode in two clusters of two states each in a phased manner from August 1.

Cluster-I has Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and Cluster-II-Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The Centre is planning to implement nationwide ration portability by June next year.

According to an official release, 2.82 crore citizens in Telangana State are benefited with Ration Anywhere (Portability) as they can get their ration from any ration shop, which was introduced by Civil Supplies Department from April 1, 2018.

Ration from Anywhere (Portability) gained huge success as number of beneficiaries using this facility is growing constantly.

Till now about 2.07 crore portability transactions have been recorded, particularly in Hyderabad which has recorded the highest transactions of 42 lakh, according to the release.

The Centre has given a one year deadline till June 30, 2020 to states and Union Territories for rolling out the one nation, one ration card system, under which beneficiaries can buy subsidised foodgrains from ration shops in any part of the country.

Ten states -- Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharasthra, Rajasthan, Telangana and Tripura -- are providing portability of Public Distribution System (PDS) entitlements.