Bengaluru: With the Assembly polls nearing, the State Government has distributed BPL cards to nearly 15 lakh families.

Addressing a press conference here on Jan.3, Food & Civil Supplies Minister U.T. Khader said that Aadhaar seeding of ration cards had led to cancellation of around 8.5 lakh bogus cards.

Stating that each Fair Price Shop (FPS) used to have 60 to 70 extra cards which have been removed from the system following Aadhaar seeding, Khader said. The installation of Biometric Point of Sale (POS) machines — which ensures that food reaches beneficiaries — is complete in 80 percent of the Fair Price Shops in the State.

Pointing out that as per the department data, POS machines have been installed in 16,832 of the 20,335 shops in the state, the Minister said that in the remainder of the shops, POS machines will be installed under Common Service Centres (CSC) scheme, an initiative of the Central Government.

Under CSC, a private agency will be allowed to install Biometric POS devices and provide broadband connectivity to the devices, he added.

Maintaining that all FPS will have internet-connected POS devices within a year or

year-and-a-half, Khader said all FPS will be upgraded to ‘Seva Sindhu Kendras’, which can then be used by the people to book online tickets or for other online purposes.

The Minister said applications for Anila Bhagya scheme will be available from Jan.16 and 1.5 lakh of them will be eligible under the first phase of the scheme. The 1.5 lakh LPG cylinder and gas stove connections will be distributed among 224 constituencies, following which the local MLAs will distribute them in their constituencies, he added.