One Nation One Ration Card Scheme

• 02 Jul 2019

• Recently the Food Minister announced One Nation One Ration Card Scheme, which all states needs to implement by July 2020.
• One Nation One Ration Card’ scheme seeks to provide portability of food security benefits all across the nation.

Features

• The poor migrant workers will be able to buy subsidised rice and wheat from any ration shop in the country but for that their ration cards must be linked to Aadhaar.
• Migrants would only be eligible for the subsidies supported by the Centre, which include rice sold at Rs. 3/kg and wheat at Rs. 2/kg, It would not include subsidies given by their respective state government in some other state.
• This scheme will ensure that no poor person is deprived of subsidised grains.
• The scheme can be implemented as already 77% of the ration shops across the country have PoS machines and more than 85% of people covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) have their cards linked to Aadhaar.
• For remaining beneficiaries, all the States have been given one more year to use point of sale (PoS) machines in the ration shops and implement the scheme.

National Food Security Act

• The basic concept of food security globally is to ensure that all people, at all times, should get access to the basic food for their active and healthy life and is characterized by availability, access, utilization and stability of food.
• Food security can also be derived from the fundamental right to life enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution, as it may be interpreted to include right to live with human dignity, which may include the right to food and other basic necessities.
• In pursuance of this, the enactment of the National Food Security Act, (NFSA) 2013 marks a paradigm shift in the approach to food security from welfare to the rights-based approach.
• The Act legally entitles up to 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population to receive subsidized foodgrains under the Targeted Public Distribution System.