Ration card holders urge govt to allow self declaration on income status

Hyderabad: With the State government planning to accept applications for new ration cards from the December end, the new beneficiaries of ration cards have urged the government to consider self declaration form for income status while issuing new ones and demand the exemption of income certificates.

The beneficiaries and social activists pointed out that in 2018, the previous state government called for the new ration cards, many applicants faced challenges in obtaining income certificates and many were exploited by middlemen & brokers. It is also to be noted here that few applications were rejected without submitting and conducting field-level inquiries, and no clear written reasons were provided for rejection.

“It would be better if the government streamlined the application process to protect applicants from exploitation and harassment. Last time when the previous government issued an application for a new ration, despite of submitting an income certificate my application was rejected,” said T Rahul, a beneficiary.

“Last time I faced a lot of difficulties in obtaining income certificates, as also was exploited by the agents, and it got rejected without conducting any field inspection,” said another beneficiary.

Raising concerned, SQ Masood, social activist, said, “I submitted all documents even income certificate, my applications was rejected. It will be better if local officers assess eligibility based on guidelines through field-level inquiries instead of demanding income certificates and also they should review the process, taking into account that “economically poor applicants” may frequently alter contact numbers and addresses, and also if the application gets rejected that , the concern officials should provide detailed reasons for application rejections.”