The 36th and final state to adopt the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) programme is Assam. During the final two years of the COVID-19 epidemic, the ONORC scheme was crucial in ensuring that beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act (NFSA), particularly migrants, received subsidised food grains. It’s a first-of-its-kind citizen-centered programme in the nation that aspires to spread food security across the entire nation.
The initiative, which was introduced in August 2019, is promptly carried out in a short amount of time and benefits roughly 80 million people. The goal of the beneficiary-centric, high-impact programme is to enable all NFSA beneficiaries to take control of their own food security, no matter where they live in the nation. Making their current ration cards portable will allow them to easily purchase (in full or in part) the subsidised foodgrains to which they are entitled from any Fair Price Shop of their choosing.
This makes it possible for their family members to withdraw the remaining funds or necessary food grains from the same ration card anywhere from the FPS of their choosing.
A further component of the ONORC programme is the “MERA RATION” mobile application, which was introduced in order to maximise programme benefits. The smartphone app, which is available in 13 languages, offers the users a wealth of practical real-time information. More than 20 lakh people have downloaded the app from the Google Play store thus far.
