There are 1.96 crore ration cards in Tamil Nadu. 24 thousand 58 full-time, 9,644 part-time and 33,702 ration shops distribute goods to these card holders.
These stores are fetched from 245 Consumer Goods Corporation Godowns across the state.
The Tamil Nadu government is going to implement the ‘mobile’ ration shop scheme from May 2023 to distribute goods to the homes of cardholders under the ‘Ore Nadu Ore Ration’ scheme.
The respective Primary Agricultural Credit Societies should purchase their own vehicles and equip them with ‘GPS’ equipment. With this, private vehicle contracts should be phased out.
Apart from the time of transporting goods to the ration shops, the Primary Agriculture Co-operative Credit Unions have to earn income by renting out vehicles at other times.
Apart from this, they said that ‘mobile’ ration shops should be divided ward-wise in respective areas and goods should be distributed to all card holders under one country one ration scheme. The government has ordered that the respective joint registrars of cooperatives should carry out the work for this purpose.
A co-operative department official said, “We use a private vehicle on a rental basis to fetch ration items from the godown. To avoid it in the first place, they have advised to buy their own vehicle.
They have asked to convert the same vehicle to be used as a mobile ration shop.
From May, the ‘mobile’ ration shop scheme will be implemented in all districts except Chennai and the card holders will be provided with household goods, he said.