Four more States/UTs, namely Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland and Uttarakhand, are going to join the One Nation One Ration Card scheme, the government said on Saturday.

“While taking note of the requisite technical readiness of 4 more States/UT of Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland and Uttarakhand, the Department of Food & Public Distribution has enabled the integration of these 4 States/UT with existing 20 States/UTs for the National Portability,” it told.

Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan has reviewed the progress of One Nation One Ration Card plan.

As per the government, with this, about 65 crores (80%) of total NFSA population is now potentially enabled for receiving food grains anywhere in these States/UTs through national portability of ration cards. Remaining States/UTs are targeted to be integrated in national portability by March 2021.

The One Nation One Ration Card is an ambitious plan and endeavour of DoFPD, to ensure the delivery of food security entitlements to all beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA), irrespective of their physical location anywhere in the country, by implementing nation-wide portability of ration cards under the ongoing central sector scheme on ‘Integrated Management of Public Distribution System (IM-PDS)’ in association with all States/UTs.

Through this system, the migratory NFSA beneficiaries who frequently change their place of dwelling in search of temporary employments, etc. are now enabled with an option to lift their entitled quota of food grains from any Fair Price Shop (FPS) of their choice anywhere in the country by using their same/existing ration card with biometric/Aadhaar based authentication on an electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) device installed at the FPSs.

The 24 States/UTs which are part of the scheme are Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.