New Delhi, Jan 27 (PTI) Under the new Food Security Rules 2025, the Delhi government will form a multi-tiered grievance redressal system as well as vigilance committees at the state, district, block and fair price shop levels to ensure accountability in ration distribution, officials said on Tuesday.
The Delhi Cabinet recently approved raising the annual income criterion for issuing ration cards, from Rs one lakh per annum to Rs 1.20 lakh.
The Delhi Food Security Rules, 2025, contain detailed provisions for internal and external grievance redressal and the setting up of vigilance committees at various levels, officials said.
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta had earlier announced that the new food security rules would be implemented in Delhi with the resolve that no one should go hungry. The ration distribution system will become transparent and accountable, she had said.
Officials noted that to ensure transparency and ground-level accountability, new, clearly defined vigilance committees will be constituted at four levels to monitor the system.
The minister of food and supplies will chair the committee at the state level. District-level committees will be chaired by the members of Parliament concerned, while block-level committees will be headed by area MLAs.
The food supply level officers will chair the fair price shop-level committees. Also, the ration card quotas will be allocated district-wise, based on voter population, until new census data is available, officials said.
The ration cards will be issued, ensuring the most needy applicants are served first rather than on a first-come, first-served basis, they added.
Under the external mechanism of grievance redressal, the additional district magistrates will act as district grievance redressal officers (DGROs) for formal resolution of complaints.
A state food commission will hear the appeals against DGRO orders. For prioritising the ration card issuance, district-level committees headed by the district magistrate or ADM will be formed. These will include two MLAs and sub-divisional magistrates.
The district committees are mandated to scrutinise and approve applications based on the new rules.
According to official data, due to the absence of clear rules for several years, more than 3,89,883 applications have remained pending in Delhi, and over 11,65,965 people are still waiting for food security benefits.
Data verification revealed around 6,46,123 beneficiaries whose income details did not match the prescribed norms. About 95,682 individuals had remained in the system for a long time without availing any benefits. Nearly 23,394 duplicate names were found, while in 6,185 cases, benefits were recorded in the names of deceased persons. Around 56,372 people had themselves requested to opt out of the system, officials said.
Owing to all these reasons, a total of more than 8,27,756 vacancies were created. PTI VIT VIT MPL MPL
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