CHANDIGARH, June 2 — More than 33 lakh beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in Punjab are at risk of being debarred from receiving free wheat starting July, as they failed to complete their eKYC authentication by the Centre’s May 31 deadline.
The Union Government’s directive, aimed at linking Aadhaar with ration cards via eKYC, is intended to weed out ineligible recipients under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY). District food and supplies controllers were instructed on May 20 to ensure that wheat for the July–September quarter is distributed only to households whose heads have completed eKYC. Officers were also directed to remove the names of deceased beneficiaries from records.
A senior official in the Food and Supplies Department told The Tribune that eKYC has been completed for 1.25 crore out of 1.59 crore total beneficiaries in the state — covering 78.9% of the list. Authentication is still in progress for another 11,952 beneficiaries.
“We want to ensure that only eligible beneficiaries get the free ration. Sufficient time and access were provided through 2,000 ration depots equipped with ePOS machines across the state,” the official said.
The eKYC drive follows a contentious physical verification exercise in 2022, which had declared lakhs of beneficiaries ineligible, sparking social and political backlash. The present drive replaces physical verification with digital authentication as the eligibility benchmark.
