3 min readPatnaMay 31, 2026 11:14 AM IST
First published on: May 31, 2026 at 07:00 AM IST
Just over 3% of Bihar ration card holders have been removed after the matching of their names against the state electoral roll prepared after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise earlier this year, and after a cross-verification exercise by the Centre that started in 2025.
Bihar Food and Consumer Protection Minister Ashok Choudhary told The Indian Express that they had completed “97.56% of the exercise”. “Out of 8,19,888 cards that were flagged, 5,57,278 were marked for deletion while 2,59,197 were marked for retention,” he said.
According to data from the state government, 5.5 lakh people of the state’s 1.79 crore ration card holders have been dropped from the ration card list, with death, absence of mandatory KYC, or income criteria cited as the chief reasons.
Deaths, migration and duplication were behind 99% of the SIR deletions in Bihar, as reported by The Indian Express. Around 68 lakh voters in total were deleted in Bihar during the SIR, which kicked off from the state.
Sub-divisional magistrates across Bihar’s 38 districts are learnt to have been asked to display lists of people whose ration cards were cancelled.
The BJP-led Bihar government has been talking of a “cleansing campaign” across government schemes, to remove ineligible names, with the SIR as benchmark. However, so far, this is limited to ration card holders.
A sub-divisional officer told The Indian Express: “We have the SIR data, and also a list of ‘higher income suspects’ for deletion.” According to the government data, Muzaffarpur (32,360), Patna (32,626), Araria (17,439) and Bhagalpur (11,931) districts have seen the highest deletions.
A Banka-based PDS dealer said: “Of about 3,000 ration card beneficiaries here, names of 400 have been deleted. Our job is only to put up the list. The aggrieved can contest it before the Sub-Divisional Officer or Magistrate.”
In Bihar’s list of 1.79 crore ration card holders, some 22.93 lakh are the poorest, entitled to the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, making them eligible for 35 kg of grain per month.
A senior official said the data gathered during house-to-house verifications for PDS would be “synchronised across other government systems”. “When the local administration identifies that an individual’s name has been flagged or deleted from the voter list due to death, long-term migration, or ineligibility, that data is shared with the Department of Food and Consumer Protection Department,” the official said.
In August 2025, The Indian Express reported that a Centre-ordered cross-verification of about 20 crore ration holders, found that 94.71 lakh of them were taxpayers, 17.51 lakh were owners of four-wheelers and another 5.31 lakh were directors in companies.
Officials said these roughly 1.17 crore people were entitled to free foodgrains under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), and states were directed to undertake necessary field verification and remove the ineligible ration card holders.
In Bihar’s list of 1.79 crore ration card holders, some 22.93 lakh are the poorest, entitled to the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, making them eligible for 35 kg of grain per month.
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