In a video conference with DCs, Chief Secretary, B R Sharma Monday reviewed the progress with regard to the implementation of National Food Security Act in the State, which is slated to be rolled out on 1stFebruary 2016.
With most of the DCs reporting close to 100% coverage in terms of issuance of declaration forms and receiving the same back with the required information, the Chief Secretary stressed ensuring that the data generated is scrutinized for errors and integrity, and is uploaded on the National Portal within the set deadline.
Chief Secretary also called for making necessary improvements in the software meant to upload the data and to make it user friendly. “NIC should ensure the software is user friendly, for hassle free and expeditious punching of the data”, Mr Sharma said.After all the data is received, scrutinized and uploaded on the Portal, next step will be to distribute Ration Cards to the public. The exercise of distributing Ration Cards is expected to start in the 1st week of January. In this regard, Chief Secretary asked DCs to get ready and place the necessary requirements of Ration Cards, category-wise, before the concerned CA&PD Director.
In order to keep the public well informed about Ration Card status, the Chief Secretary instructed to explore use of bulk SMSs for the same. “Public should be thoroughly informed about the benefits of NFSA, under which they will receive assured monthly ration at highly subsidized rates” Chief Secretary said.Implementation of NFSA-2013 in Jammu & Kashmir will facilitate the State Government to provide assured monthly ration at highly subsidized rates to all deserving families. It will also make Public Distribution System (PDS) highly transparent as all related record shall be placed in public domain. Besides also taking advantage of Aadhaar for unique identification.