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There are regional variations in the waitlist — Delhi has about 1.1 million people in the list while Maharashtra has about 88,000.
10% of beneficiaries may be ineligible
Earlier in an exercise by the food ministry, about 10% of the existing 800 million beneficiaries under PMGKAY, after inter-ministerial data convergence, were found to appear in one or more databases such as taxpayers, car owners and company directors, and may not qualify as per eligibility norms prescribed by respective states.
Several states, including Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh, have initiated steps to weed out “ineligible” ration cards.
There are several beneficiaries under the ‘silent ration cards’ who have not claimed free ration cards for 6 months to one year, which the food ministry had asked to check so that wait listed beneficiaries or ration cards could be included in the beneficiaries lists.
The Department of Food and Public Distribution had undertaken a “comprehensive exercise” to strengthen rightful targeting by matching the ration card management system (RCMS) database with those of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, and PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi.
Reverification exercise underway
In a communication to state governments in July, the food ministry stressed the need to “re-verify” the nearly 800 million people currently entitled to receive 5 kg each of rice or wheat every month free of cost. Simultaneously, the government intends to add new beneficiaries under PMGKAY, which operates under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013.
“As these beneficiary lists were prepared by states a decade back, there is a need to reverify the eligibility of people who are covered under the PMGKAY and include new beneficiaries,” an official said. He, however, ruled out any sudden or sharp reduction in coverage under the free ration scheme.
The open-ended nature of NFSA — Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2023 extended PMGKAY by five years — is seen as a major fiscal burden by analysts. When NFSA was enacted by the UPA-II government at the fag end of its tenure in 2013, it was stated that “issue prices” to beneficiaries would be revised in line with economic cost, which includes MSP procurement, storage, transportation and distribution expenses.
Since this revision never happened, the gap between economic cost and issue prices has widened, and subsidy amounts have surged.
NFSA mandates coverage of 75% of the rural and 50% of the urban population. This includes about 20 million AAY households who get 35 kg of foodgrains per family per month, while members of priority households are entitled to 5 kg of rice or wheat each per month.
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Sources said e-KYCs of 83% of over 809 million registered NFSA beneficiaries have been completed using Aadhaar authentication. The food ministry has completed Aadhaar seeding of 204 million household ration cards.
Currently, 56–58 million tonnes of foodgrains are distributed annually under the free ration scheme, and the government has budgeted Rs 2.03 lakh crore as food subsidy for FY26.
Before January 2023, NFSA beneficiaries paid marginal prices for foodgrains, and the shift to a regime of completely free supply raised the cost by 3–4%.