Comrade Provash Ghosh, General Secretary, SUCI(Communist), issued the following statement on 18 March 2021:
“We are seriously concerned at the news that the Supreme Court has asked the central government to respond to an allegation of cancellation of 3 crore ration cards on the pretext of non-linking with Aadhar cards without any notice to the families concerned. It is also mentioned in the status report that fault in the technological system based on Iris identification, thumb prints, possession of Aadhaar, functioning of the internet in rural and remote areas etc, is the reason behind such deprivation of poor people from the right to food security. Such an act of callousness on the part of the governments and their grievance redressal agencies under national Food Security Act, both of the Central as well as the states, have been one of the reasons of rising starvation deaths in the country. It also smacks of a conspiracy as the BJP-led central government is not only slashing food subsidy but also on the plea of direct transfer of subsidy to bank accounts is trying to abolish the Public Distribution System in a phased manner.
We demand that the government immediately restores the cancelled cards and refrains from victimizing poor common citizens because of inefficiency and indifferent attitude of the government machineries.”
