BRS demands recall of smart food cards, CAG audit into Rs 100‑crore spend

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi has accused the Congress government in Telangana of misusing Rs. 100 crore on laminated ration cards carrying portraits of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and Civil Supplies Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy.

Hyderabad: After the Congress government launched the distribution of smart food security cards, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) termed the initiative a cheap party campaign and demanded that the cards be recalled. It also sought a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit of the exercise.

In a sharp attack, BRS MLC Dasoju Sravan condemned what he called a criminal waste of Rs. 100 crore in public funds under the guise of distributing 1.05 crore laminated PDS ration cards. The cards were launched on August 15 across 119 constituencies.

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He said the expenditure came at a time when Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy was claiming financial helplessness in clearing long-pending fee reimbursement dues for impoverished students and pension as well as gratuity benefits for retired employees.

Over Rs. 100 crore was spent to replace active e-cards with glossy, laminated cards carrying oversized portraits of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and Civil Supplies Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, he alleged. Nearly Rs. 100 was spent on each card, factoring in cloud servers, specialised web portals, printing, lamination and logistics across 33 districts. He charged that the entire exercise amounted to a waste of taxpayers’ money.

In 2021, Congress leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi, took to the national stage to denounce Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s photograph on CoWIN vaccination certificates. They had described it as a “disgusting abuse of public funds for personal PR during a humanitarian crisis”.

The Election Commission subsequently ordered the removal of the Prime Minister’s photographs during State elections in Goa, Uttarakhand and elsewhere. Sravan questioned why the same moral standard was not being applied to Revanth Reddy and Uttam Kumar Reddy.

“Food security under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) is a statutory, constitutional right and not a personal feudal charity disbursed from the pockets of Congress Ministers,” Sravan said.

The BRS MLC maintained that by displaying the Civil Supplies Minister’s portrait alongside that of the Chief Minister, the Congress government had openly flouted the Supreme Court’s orders.

He said that once the Model Code of Conduct came into force for the impending local body or GHMC elections, the Election Commission would inevitably freeze or order the reprinting of the 1.05 crore cards. This, he said, would force taxpayers to bear another Rs. 100 crore as a penalty for what he described as the government’s reckless narcissism.

The BRS demanded that the photographs of the Chief Minister and Civil Supplies Minister be removed from all ration cards. It also sought the reissue of standardised PDS cards bearing only the official State Emblem. The party further demanded a CAG audit of the approximately Rs. 100-crore procurement, printing, server setup and lamination contracts. It sought recovery of the allegedly squandered public funds directly from the authorities responsible.