NEW DELHI: Over two crore ineligible beneficiaries have been weeded out from free foodgrain scheme PMGKAY in the past four to five months while new eligible people are being included in the programme. Simultaneously, the govt on Tuesday launched an online platform that allows beneficiaries to share their feedback on ration distribution through AI-enabled calls in their preferred language.Confirming the deletion of ineligible beneficiaries, food secretary Sanjeev Chopra said the exercise has been undertaken to ensure better targeting of “rightful” beneficiaries while eligible beneficiaries are being added to the scheme by state govts.Officials said the food and public distribution department at the Centre identified the ineligible beneficiaries on parameters such as deceased, income tax payee, govt service, four-wheeler ownership and directors of entities. The list was shared with state govts for verification and then deletion of names.To ensure that beneficiaries are getting the right quality of foodgrain and are not being charged, food and consumer affairs minister Pralhad Joshi launched the Anna Sahayata Holistic AI Solution (Asha) to collect direct beneficiary feedback on ration quantity, quality and payment-related issues. The system uses multilingual translation, sentiment analysis, automated grievance categorisation and real-time dashboards for administrators.The platform will “enable us to get granular sentiment insights up to the ration shop level for strengthening data-driven decision-making under the food security scheme,” said an official.The food secretary said Rs 5 lakh will be spent every month for this operation and added that the cost would have been much higher if done through call centres.
