The Terrorists attack on Mumbai & other cities has made one thing clear that there is no mechanism to track outsiders within the city & India.
The only resident identification till now is the Ration Card or the Passport. The Pan card & the Election card is another scam which less said the better.
So to strengthen system to some extent & know the true number of household & the number of people Maharashtra Government had initiated a program for verification of thr Ration card.
But the Congress led Maharashtra Government has failed again & again in doing so. AAm Admi is made to run from pillar to post only to be left high & dry sweating and shelling more money in return for nothing.
The ration Card fiasco is on such thing, yes its needed to weed out the bogus card holders, but the manner in which the process is undertaken is sheer torture to say the the least.
Last time they had the process to make all ration cards computerised with all the database & a smart card to be given, for 4 months people were given notice to complete the process & if they did not rush to the nearest Ration office the cards would be canceled.
6 months after the entire process got over the plan was canceled by the Maharashtra Government (Congress - Vilasrao Deshmukh)
Not wanting to be fall prey again & the mad frenzy of standing in the heat & being treated like cattle , I had avoided going. But like a true Mumbaikars wanting to see the city which is the only home for ages be safe & peaceful , i rushed to the ration shop before the Feb 15th last date.
On reaching, the lady at the shop after going through the register informed me that the card was canceled, asking her why it was so without giving an intimation of the same to me , i was told that she had no idea & that many cards were canceled & have to be renewed.
Came to know that the Ration shop owner Mr. Gupta was no more & now his son was handling the shop, he was curtious & he wrote a note and told me to rush to the ration office at Pant Nagar & meet the officer Mr Patil.
On reaching the Ration Card office, it was sad to see that even after Independence, the Old ration office was still the same, the small dingy, dusty, full of torn tattered files, paper lying all across, the cancer causing asbestos sheet as roof & the dark , dimly lit office.
Anyway went in to the Window 1 for the form, was told by lady (as though doing a big favour on me & the citizens) to show the note to the officer, rushed to the table, there the officer was busy as usal on his phone & after a good 15 minutes he looked up at the clock , with the time ticking to 5 pm the time to close the office he started his work, after much standing he asked what was the matter .
On showing the note written by the Ration Shop owner (Mr Guptas Son), he pointed me to a person and said go there (its the usual way of all Goverment offices / Municipality Office) rushed to a old guy who then took his own sweet time to find the register (God only knows how those register survive the handling & the conditions of storing them, this in Country which makes Computereised system world over & is known to have the best of brains & technical capabilities).
The register out, he looked into it & confirmed that it was canclled ( heavens only know swhat transpired them to take such a decision without an intimation ), so move to the same officer who after some 10 minutes wrote some note & said to come again next day to fill up the forms & complete the process.
Day 1 eneded with one assurance that the card will be renewed. Following day went in to collect the form, & for some reason they have a only forms printed in Marathi. Even though i know Marathi to read & wirte I did not want to take the chance of being rejected after standing in line.
The next best thing is the FORM FILLING GUY ( yes there is a person who is only assisgned to fill the forms , & his charges Rs 10/- per form ) so did the same , got into line window no 4, the lady after much time wasting checked it & said she needed some more photocopies of the ration card. So off i went to the the photocpies , after the lady checked she gave a receipt & said to come next week to complete the process.
After a week , when i went to present the receipt , the lady was not present & in her place another lady , she saw the note & said that it was not to be presented now , it was dated for next month & only after the Inspector has come to the resident for verification the process will be completed.
Here i'm waiting for the end of the month & the inspector to make sure that the Ration card is renewed & verified.
The complete process has made me agnry & frustrated again, a whole of 3 days were wasted for no fault on my part, true honest citizens have to suffer all this while the aliens, illegals, scamsters , who are aptly taken care with lot of bribes with the full knowledge of the political parties have nothing to bother about.
The Shiv Sena being in control of the BMC does not even blink, when their officers allow the UP / Bihari's to put up hawking carts & construct illegal shop on the foot path & grab government land as long as they get their share of bribe (monthly / weekly/ yearly , running into crores ).
Hopefully with the biggest Census ever taken in the history of mankind will start next week by the Govt Of India , which will be under the UIAD project. Hopefully this will end the mutliple & useless identification system which is still a bane for the goverment well as the people of India.
