Ahead of launch of T.N.’s basic income scheme for women, Collectors told not to allow splitting of ration cards

TN govt directs Collectors not to allow routine splitting of ration cards for 'Kalaignar Magalir Urimai Thogai' scheme, providing women heads of families ₹1,000/month. Objectivity should be governing factor when deciding on petitions. Income limit of ₹2.5 lakh applies to many schemes for Backward Classes, MBCs, DNCs, SCs, STs.

The Tamil Nadu government has directed the Collectors not to allow splitting of ration cards, as a matter of routine, in the run-up to the launch of the Kalaignar Magalir Urimai Thogai, a basic income scheme for women heads of families, scheduled for September 15. Under the scheme, eligible women are to be given ₹1,000 each in monthly assistance. But there would be only one beneficiary per family.

Since the ration cards form the basic unit for determination of beneficiaries and the scheme allows only one beneficiary from a family, there are chances of the cards being split to accommodate multiple beneficiaries in the same family.

Officials who are supervising the implementation of the scheme have asked the Collectors not to entertain requests for the cards to be split. However, in genuine cases, the Collectors can allow the cards to be split, a top official of the government said.

A former IAS officer, who served in the 1990s as the Collector of a western district, recalls that he had received numerous petitions for splitting of ration cards so that applicants could eventually come under a scheme providing free house-site pattas to the poor.

Objectivity should be the governing factor while such petitions were decided, he said.

As for ₹2.5 lakh as the family annual income limit, another official said this was fixed with the income tax ceiling for individuals kept in mind. Compared with many other welfare schemes, the income limit for this scheme is relatively high.

There are several schemes in which the income limit is much lower. For example, in the Rural Girls’ Incentive Scheme (Most Backward Classes and Denotified Communities only) and in the economic development schemes, such as distribution of iron boxes and motorised sewing machines, the parental annual income limit is ₹1 lakh. However, the ₹2.5 lakh annual income limit applies to several other schemes for students of the Backward Classes, the MBCs, the DNCs, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.