The poor left in the lurch

The Rajasthan government suspended about two crore ration cards earlier this year. The state believed that these people were no longer in need of ration and were engaged in defrauding the state.

Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) asked the government to put out the list in the public domain on their website. The list was finally put out after strenuous efforts and MKSS volunteers fanned out to find out why many of the villagers were not using their ration cards.

Dealers, volunteers discovered, often took advantage of the villagers’ illiteracy, asking them to put their thumb on the biometric POS machine. When the machine read — Please collect your wheat — the dealer translated this as “There is no ration available until next month”. Significantly, no dealer was a woman.

We visited a village called Pata Ki Aati in Rajsamand district when Shankar Singh (one of the co-founders of MKSS) led us to an old and humble abode.

There was just one khat (a wooden, movable bed) covered with a plastic sheet to protect it from rains, a vessel to cook and some sticks to be used for lighting the chulha. The dwelling belonged to an old couple – Uday Singh (72) and Chunni Devi (67) – who was completely bed ridden.

Her husband, despite his age and a terribly hunched back, took care of her, cooked for her and did everything to meet their needs to the best of his ability. Given her speech impairment, only her husband understood what she said.

The only source of income for this couple is the monthly old age pension. Chunni Devi’s pension was stopped in September 2015. By the end of August 2016, the government had issued an order stating that ration would be given only via PoS (Point of Sale) machines.

By October 2016, an application was submitted to the Block Development Officer asking for monthly ration, pension by Money Order and any possible help with home. In December, the MKSS team went to the BDO to follow up on the application and was told that he had not received any such application.

MKSS immediately went to the Sub Divisional Magistrate’s office and got the dispatch order and by the time they returned, the BDO had left. The continued efforts revealed several loopholes and an insensitive attitude of the state towards its most vulnerable people. A complaint was eventually registered on the February 7, 2017. Ten days later, MKSS received a reply stating that the couple had gone to get the pension, but the money still wasn’t credited.

Each time the couple went to the bank, they had to call upon two people to ferry them in a car. Since the bank is on the first floor, the two would carry Chunni Devi on their shoulders for her biometric registration. The couple would end up paying more than half of their pension to the helpers hired to overcome this ordeal.

In March 2017, the government passed an order which stated that in case of biometric issues or in case the beneficiary does not have a phone, an approval must be taken from the BDO. On July 9, the complaint was finally resolved by sending pension to Chunni Devi by money order.

A few days later, we realised that they had stopped receiving ration and immediately a complaint was filed to the SDM office. The issue was resolved and they received their ration due in August but the backlog was not given.

The government had passed a new order which denied the backlog to the beneficiaries. However, this order is not yet in public domain.