Ramit Mehrotra, Pune
Telangana government will soon issue digital cards to each family in the Telugu-speaking state. The card would facilitate ration, healthcare services, and merits from various welfare schemes.
In a press statement issued on Monday, The government stated one card would be equivalent to multiple digital cards provided for multiple welfare schemes. The government endeavours to have one card for every welfare facility for the benefit of the people. This initiative is specifically aimed for senior citizens to easily access health, medicine, and civic department amenities.
Revanth Reddy, the Chief Minister of Telangana, said that the digital cards are aimed to be flexible, which allows their family to update their details, such as adding or removing names of the family members, to avoid outdated details. He also advised the setup of a district-level system to look at the performance and effectiveness of the digital card program. The objective is to have an elongated benefit period without any hurdles.
He also asked the officials to research on the benefits to study the benefits of availing such a facility to the citizens. Such a facility is already implemented in several other states including Rajasthan, Haryana and Karnataka. He has asked the people to choose an urban area and a village, in each of the 119 assembly constituencies, and chart a plan to familiarise the pilot project for the family digital card project. The cards will also contain the health profiles of the family members, which will enable them to avail of medical services in the future.
The meeting opined on the potential merits of the family digital card to align and ease the distribution of services and government-sponsored benefits, with transparency and accessibility as a prime goal. The family digital card is anticipated to enhance the delivery system of the benefits scheme in Telangana, providing easy access to the welfare schemes, under a unified system.
Forum president M. Padmanabha Reddy ushered the move to initiate a review process to create eligibility criteria and the approaches to issuing new ration cards. Approximately 90 lakh ration cards were issued to 2.84 crore out of the four crore population group in the state. Surveys state that at least 20% of the households in the state belong to the Below Poverty Line (BPL). An extra two crore people will be getting 6 kgs of rice for free, valued at 600 crores.