Long queues at Kanchi for new ration cards

KANCHEEPURAM: The Kancheepuram taluk office on Monday witnessed an unprecedented rush for new ration cards. Officials attribute the rush to the freebies announced by the AIADMK as their poll promise.Around 460 applications were received on Monday, said Civil Supplies Tashildar, Ekambaram. Though applications for ration cards are received on any working day at taluk offices, Monday is the preferred day when the District Collector receives applications seeking change of address and removal or inclusion of names.The Special Deputy Collector’s office (Social Security Scheme) also received a large number of applications, most of them relating to ration cards. Incidentally, the office of the SSS started feeding applications online for the first time from Monday, and it could not clear the rush till late in the evening.As of Monday, there were 5,500 applications seeking new ration cards from all the seven revenue taluks of the district, said District Supply Officer Gunasekharan. Under normal circumstances it would take a month to clear the backlog, but now that all the 33 Revenue Inspectors are involved in checking the existing ration cards to ascertain if they are being misused to obtain more quantity of unauthorised kerosene, it might now take two or more months, he said. To curb blackmarketing of kerosene, Revenue Inspectors have been asked to verify the number of gas connections each card holder possesses and provice kerosene according to their eligibility.