Erring officers to face criminal cases

With barely three months left to roll out the ambitious food security scheme covering a population of 7.17 crore,the state is worried about the problem of bogus ration cards in circulation and is now planning to crack the whip on erring ration officers. Having cancelled over 24 per cent of the ration cards that were found to be bogus in the last eight years,the state government has now said it will initiate criminal action against any officer found guilty of allotting a bogus or illegal ration cards.

“Any officer who is found asking money for allotting ration cards,or allotting cards in contravention of rules will have to face departmental action as well as criminal action as a case will be filed against him at the nearest police station,” said a senior food and civil supplies official. The government Monday directed all officials concerned with the distribution of ration cards to adhere to the order.

Maharashtra has 2.29 crore functional ration cards at present. In the last eight years,the government has cancelled 54.06 lakh ration cards,which is nearly 24 per cent of the existing figure. Mumbai had the highest number of bogus cards (10.25 lakh). The state managed to find these bogus cards through three separate drives undertaken in 2005,2009 and 2011.

A public interest litigation had also been filed in the Bombay High Court and the state was asked to formulate a plan to weed out bogus ration cards.

Many cards were also found to have been issued in the name of prominent personalities without verification of the documents,causing embarrassment to the state government. The state had earlier this month decided to set up vigilance committees to check whether the existing ration cards were genuine.

The bogus cards were used to siphon off ration items to sell them in the open market.