"Of the 1810 Fair Price Shops (FPS) in Tripura, in 27 ration shops or FPS in mountainous, remote interior and bordering areas, the portability networks could not be introduced due to unavailability of telephonic connectivity. However, under the Public Distribution System, we are providing five commodities to the people manually or off-line system in these 27 FPSs,"" Basu said.
There are 10,072 ration card holders comprising 46,185 people under 27 FPSs. He said that to maintain the portability networks and to carry on PDS, in some of the FPSs, services of Jio, RailTel are being utilised as the networks of state owned BSNL are not available in those areas.
Another senior official of Tripura's Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department said that of the 27 ration shops, there are 10 FPSs covering 15,000 people located just along the India-Bangladesh borders. BSNL official said that the Indian government is yet to decide on the improvement of telephone networks along the international border of the northeastern states due to security reasons.
"If the telephone networks specially the mobile connectivity along the bordering areas of northeastern states improve, then it (system) would be used and misused by the inimical elements, terrorists and criminals for their vested and illicit interests," the BSNL official said.
Basu said that so far 15 states and union territories in the country have introduced the online ration card portability system. By January, all states and union territories are expected to introduce the intra-state portability to form the first national grid for the 'One Nation, One Ration Card' scheme.The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre is trying to rollout of the aOne Nation One Ration Card' scheme by June 2020, but several challenges remain to initiate the complete ration card portability across the country.
( With inputs from IANS )