Bhavnagar launches bar-coded ration card

On Thursday,bar-coded ration cards were distributed at Bahadurgadh village in Palitana taluka. With this,at least one village in all 11 talukas of Bhavnagar district has been covered. Total number of cards distributed in the last fortnight is around 6,000. Bhavnagar district supply office aims to distribute five lakhs cards in coming three months.

The cards are in the booklet format,very much like the old version,except it has a bar code. It stores bio-metric details of all adult members of a family.

A village/city-wise data base with biometrics details of the card-holders has also been prepared. The lower age bar for adults for this card is 15 years. The card-holder has to verify his bio-metric details at the e-gram office of his gram panchayat to get the coupon issued for a month’s quota. Card-holder gets the supplies when coupon is produced at a fair price shop.

In urban areas and towns,cyber cafés will be authorised to issue such coupons so that card-holder can go to nearest café and get the coupon issued.

Collector D G Zalavadia said Bhavnagar is one of the first districts in Gujarat to distribute bar-coded cards.

“Coupon charge is Rs 3. The below poverty line (BPL) people,however,have been exempted from coupon charges,” said P C Thakor,Bhavnagar’s civil supplies officer.