In news- Assam has become the 36th State/UT to implement One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC). With this, the ONORC plan is successfully implemented in all the 36 states/UTs, making food security portable throughout the country.
About One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme-
- This is one-of-its-kind Citizen Centric initiative in the country, which is swiftly implemented in a short-span of time covering about 80 Crore beneficiaries (Since its inception in August 2019), after being initiated in August 2019.
- The objective of this program is to empower all NFSA beneficiaries to become AtmaNirbhar for their food security anywhere in the country, through portability of their existing ration cards enabling them to seamlessly lift their entitled subsidized foodgrains (in part or full) from any Fair Price Shop of their choice.
- This also enables their family members to lift the balance/required amount of foodgrains on the same ration card at their native/ any place from the FPS of their choice.
- During the last two years of COVID-19 pandemic, ONORC plan has significantly contributed in ensuring subsidized foodgrains to NFSA (National Food Security Act) beneficiaries, especially migrant beneficiaries.
- Another dimension under the ONORC plan is the ‘MERA RATION’ mobile application which has been rolled out to take maximum advantage of the ONORC plan.
- The mobile app is providing a host of useful real time information to the beneficiaries and is available in 13 languages.
- ONORC is a scheme that nationalises a beneficiary’s ration card by a process called Aadhaar Seeding.
- Any citizen, who is declared under Below Poverty Line (BPL) category will be eligible to get the benefit of this scheme across the country.
- Aadhaar seeding ensures that the beneficiary can pick up her or his entitled foodgrain from any fair price shop in the country.
- So, if the family migrates from one part of the country to another, their claim to food security remains assured.
Source: PIB
