TEAM HERALD
CALANGUTE: Tension prevailed at fair price shops along the coastal belt of Calangute on Thursday, after the contractor appointed to prepare ‘smart’ ration cards in Bardez allegedly refused to give ration card application forms to those people who had not submitted Aadhaar cards of all family members.
Many villagers are yet to get their Aadhaar cards, while others have not gone through the process due to long queues at the Bardez Mamlatdar’s office.
The Joint Mamlatdar (Bardez) office had said the Aadhaar card of the head of the family is enough to accept the forms, but staff at the Goa Electronic Ltd were adamant and refused to give application forms due to non-submission of Aadhaar cards by each and every member of the family.
However, the fair price shop owners have no issue over non-submission of Aadhaar cards by all the family members.
When Herald visited some fair price shops, the owners showed hundreds of rejected forms for non-submission of Aadhaar cards by all family members.
Heated arguments were exchanged between the officials and the people who were standing in queues to submit the forms, only to find them rejected by the officials.
“When we approached the Civil Supplies Department, we were told to submit either Aadhaar cards or any other genuine document, but surprisingly the GEL staff has been refusing our forms,” said Sandesh Naik.
“We can understand if the head of the family is asked to submit the Aadhaar card, but not every individual. The GEL officials should be directed by the department concerned to accept ration card application forms with a valid document,” added Naik.
When contacted, Bardez Joint Mamlatdar Anish Prabhudessai directed the GEL officials to accept the application forms with the Aadhaar card of only the head of the family member and not to insist for submission of Aadhaar card for every member of the family.
“An additional circular in this regard will be sent to the respective fair price shops to accept the forms without the Aadhaar cards,” informed Prabhudessai.
