HYDERABAD: Tennis star Sania Mirza may be a millionaire but her face appears on a ration card belonging to a below poverty line (BPL) family in
The white ration card which makes a family eligible to get rice at a highly-subsidised price of Rs 2-a-kg and social security benefits, health insurance and a permanent housing has been issued to one Laxmi of Vizianagaram district with a photograph of Sania.
The revelation of the case has invited the wrath of chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy who reviewed the social security schemes at a high-level meeting here on Saturday, sources in the CMO said.
This only showed how blindly the ration cards were issued without any proper verification, the chief minister reportedly fumed at officials of the civil supplies department.
While the state population is about 8.3 crore the population figure as per the number of ration cards issued crossed 9.8 crore.
The chief minister himself revealed in the state assembly three days ago that there were as many as 2.15 crore bogus white ration cards making those families eligible to draw subsidised rice and avail of welfare schemes, including Arogyasri health insurance scheme.
The government has recently initiated a programme to weed out bogus white ration cards so that only genuine beneficiaries access the welfare schemes.
"As per our estimate there are a staggering 65 lakh bogus white ration cards in the state. In monetary terms the burden on the state exchequer on account of this could be hundreds of crores of rupees not just in terms of rice but also health insurance housing pensions and other such welfare schemes,'' a senior official said.
With the state government set to increase the subsidised rice quota from 20 to 30 kgs per month per white ration card from October, the financial burden on the state will increase by at least Rs 400 crore, from Rs 1800 crore to Rs 2200 crore.
