Chennai: Provisions in ration shops will be given only using smart cards from March 1.

State Food Minister R Kamaraj today said issuing of smart cards would be completed by February 15.
He said 99 per cent smart cards had been issued across the State already. The rest were awaiting photographs of family heads. He added that in Chennai 1,50,000 people were yet to give their photos.

During the recently concluded Assembly session, Kamaraj said that of the total 1.94 crore family ration card holders, 1.88 crore had already been provided with smart cards.

On the issue of printing of actors’ photos on some cards, he said it was because of the introduction of the mobile app to register in the smart card scheme.

‘To make things easy for those applying for smart cards, the State government allowed card holders to upload the pictures of family heads from their smart phones. Sometimes people wrongly uploaded photos which led to confusion in some places. However, the problem has been sorted out,’ he added.

Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami had launched the smart family card scheme worth Rs 330 crore replacing the existing ones on April 1, 2017.

The ration cards in use now were issued in 2005 and its official validity ended in 2009. The Government decided to continue using them by pasting additional papers.

Officials said there was an increase in multiple ration cards registered in the same name which led to the illegal use of ration.