One nation, one ration card – Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman promises subsidised food for migrant workers anywhere in the country

• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said the ‘One Nation One Ration’ card will be available for all by March 2021.
• Through this card, migrant workers can access any Public Distribution Shop in any state, any country.
• Promising 100% national portability by March 2021, Sitharaman said that this initiative is a part of the PM’s technology driven reforms.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said the ‘One Nation One Ration’ card will be available for all by March 2021. Through this card, migrant workers can access any Public Distribution Shop in any state, any country. This will enable national portability of ration card.

One of the biggest crises of India in the past one month has been the migrant workers crisis. Finding themselves suddenly out of jobs, these workers with barely any access to food have been travelling by foot to leave their state of work to go home.

Now, the government’s One Nation One Ration card hopes to help migrant workers from different states across the country. Intra-state portability has been introduced in over 20 states.

“This will help 67 crore beneficiaries in 23 states covering 83% of the PDS population by August 2020,” said Sitharaman.

Promising 100% national portability by March 2021, Sitharaman said that this initiative is a part of the PM’s technology driven reforms. All the states will complete fair price shops automation by March 2021.

The FM also promised free food grain supply to migrants for two months. “About 8 crore migrants will benefit from this and ₹3500 crore will be spent on this intervention over 2 months,” she said.

Migrants who don’t have either the National Food Security Act card or any state card will get 5KG of grains per person and 1KG gram per family per month for two months.

The FM confirmed that people will be able to get food through the One Nation One Ration card, with their Aadhar card. An earlier release from the government had said, "This system enables the migratory ration card holders/beneficiaries to lift their entitled foodgrains from any Fair Price Shop (FPS) of their choice in the country by using their existing/same ration card issued in their home State/UT after biometric/Aadhaar authentication on electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) devices installed at the FPSs. "

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