Bengaluru: In a crackdown on illegal BPL card holders, the Food and Civil Supplies Department has asked all unauthorised BPL card holders to voluntarily return the same to the Department latest by March.

Addressing the Department officials at a meeting held in the State capital recently, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Umesh Katti said that the Government has taken serious note of misuse of eligibility criteria for getting BPL cards. 

Pointing out that it has come to notice that a significant per-centage of affluent families too have succeeded in unauthorisedly getting BPL cards, the Minister said that the Government had given many chances for illegal card holders to return the same. But it has been found that only 55 to 60 percent of them have returned, he said and added that this was the last chance for ineligible families to return BPL cards.

Stating that officials have been directed to trace illegal card holders through Aadhaar validation, Katti said that only those families whose annual income is less than Rs.1.2 lakh are eligible to have BPL cards.

Noting that Government, Para- Government, Income Tax payers, Tractor, Motorbikes, TV and Refrigerator owners and also those owning more than 5 acres of land are ineligible to get BPL cards, he warned that criminal cases will be filed against affluent families possessing BPL cards, if they failed to  voluntarily return the same within the March deadline.