Press Information Bureau

One Nation, One Ration Card

1. Introduction:

The implementation of nation-wide portability of ration cards through “One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC)” scheme, is an endeavour of the Department of Food & Public Distribution, Government of India to empower about 81 crore beneficiaries.This plan has been launched under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, which aims to ensure that anyone can take their share of food grains from any district of any state of the country.

2. Objective:

• Through this facility, while a migrant beneficiary is able to get ration at the destination he or she is working in, his/her family back home is also allowed to get their part of the entitled ration to support itself.
•  This system provides flexibility to all NFSA beneficiaries to lift their foodgrains from any FPS (Fair Price Shop) of their choice.

3. Need:

• Owing to the defined coverage of beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013 in each State/UT, it was difficult for migrant beneficiaries to get a new ration card issued. Even if they were able to get one issued, it introduced the ‘duplicity’ of ration cards/beneficiaries in the country’s Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), thereby potentially depriving many other left-out and genuinely deserving beneficiaries from getting included under the fold of NFSA.
• Now problems of getting a new ration card and duplicity of beneficiaries are solved and the government is enabling the inclusion of all genuine beneficiaries of State/UT through portability under the fold of NFSA.
• This mechanism can plug the leakage/diversion of un-lifted foodgrains in FPSs, as they can now be lifted by their rightful beneficiaries through portability and gets adjusted between States/UTs, thereby minimizing the chances of diversion.

4. Technology Driven Scheme:

• The scheme enables migrant beneficiaries to get their food grains from a FPS of their choice in most parts of the country, by using their same/existing ration card with biometric authentication of identity on an Electronic Point of Sale (e-PoS) device
• This system of portability is being implemented in all states and Union Territories where the system is being built upon the strong foundations of computerized Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) operations. This includes the installed infrastructure of ePoS devices at the FPS and seeding of beneficiaries’ Aadhaar numbers with their ration cards.
• A copy of either the Ration card or Aadhar card is acceptable. Beneficiaries can simplytell either their Ration card number or seeded Aadhar number to the FPS dealer to receive their ration.
• The Department of Food & Public Distribution, in association with NIC, has launched a Mobile Application “MERA RATION” for the benefit of NFSA beneficiaries, particularly migrant beneficiaries, to take maximum advantage of the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) plan.

• Currently, the ‘Mera Ration’ mobile application is available in 12 languages.
• On it, other information like registration of migrants, details of available entitlements, location of nearby FPS, information on past transactions, eligibility criteria, list of ONORC states, etc. can be accessed.

5. Outcomes of ONORC:

The broad-based reform of portability covering nearly 81 Crore NFSA beneficiaries in all States/UTs is being achieved with minimal outlay of just Rs. 127 Crore, over a period of 4 years.

• This is a one-of- its-kind Citizen-Centric initiative in the country, swiftly implemented in34 States/UTs in a short-span of time (as of August 2021), after being sanctioned in 2018-19 and implemented from August 2019.
• ONORC was helpful to NFSA beneficiaries in availing food grains from any location during COVID pandemic/ lockdown period.
• During the period between 01-April-2020 and 30-September-2021, about 24.32 crore portability transactions under NFSA were carried out across States/UTs, benefiting large number of NFSA beneficiaries, mostly migrants, at the Fair Price Shops (FPS) near to their location of work/temporary stay.
• Under the NSFA, almost 23.6crore Ration cards have been digitized to cover 80 crore beneficiaries of all states/UTs.
• Almost 93.1 % Ration Cards and 90.1 % beneficiaries are Aadhar-seeded at a national level.
• Online allocation orders for food grains for all FPS has been implemented in all states/UTs, besides Chandigarh and Puducherry.
• Supply Chain Management of food grains is computerized in 31 States/UTs for online management of stocks in godowns and its in-and-out movement.

Source:PIB e-booklet on One Nation One Ration Card

AG/AR/IJ