99.8% of ration cards seeded with Aadhaar under ONORC

At present, around 99.8% of ration cards have been seeded with Aadhaar for the rightful targeting of Public Distribution System (PDS) beneficiaries in the country. The One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) plan has already been implemented by all 36 States/UTs, across the country. Since its inception around 124 Crore portability transactions have been recorded under the ONORC plan, which includes both inter-State and intra-State transactions ensuring the food security of around 80 Crore beneficiaries in the country.  Due to Aadhaar seeding and installation of ePoS devices at the FPSs, at present, around 97% transactions in the country are done in a transparent manner through biometric authentication by use of ePoS devices on a monthly basis.  This Department has extended the timeline given to the States/UTs, under the Notification dated 08/02/2017 (as amended from time to time) issued in exercise of Section-7 of the Aadhaar Act 2016, for completing the Aadhaar seeding of ration cards up to 31/03/2024. Until then, all States/UTs have been advised that no genuine beneficiary/household shall be deleted from the list of eligible ration cards/ beneficiaries and shall not be denied their entitled quota of foodgrains to Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) beneficiaries only for want of Aadhaar number or only on the ground of not possessing an Aadhaar number, failure of biometric authentication due to network/ connectivity/ linking issues or any other technical reasons etc.