Centre to disable ration benefits of 15.8 million inactive beneficiaries from October under PDS cleanup

Key facts

• The Centre will disable the ration entitlements of 15.8 million beneficiaries from October 2026 for ration cards that have not been used in the past six months.
• Under the amended Targeted Public Distribution System (Control) Order, disabled 'silent ration cards' get a three-month window for field verification and e-KYC, and cards that complete e-KYC within this period will be reactivated.
• In November 2024, the food ministry said about 58 million ration cards had been removed from the Public Distribution System (PDS) through digitisation, Aadhaar seeding and e-KYC de-duplication exercises.
• Under the SMART-PDS programme (Scheme for Modernization and Reforms through Technology in Public Distribution System), e-KYC coverage stood at 90.64% as of July 30, and new protocols for e-KYC-based data replication and mobile-number seeding have been rolled out.