With COVID-19 and unimaginable financial hardship, one would have thought that the public would make the best use of the government’s Public Distribution Scheme. Officials though have found that 7.9 lakh ration cardholders have not collected food grains from State-authorised shops across Maharashtra in the past five months, a front-page report stated in this paper.

This anomaly has prompted those in charge to determine that cardholders are either bogus or ineligible as the system has been linked with Aadhar. Now, the government has asked district officials to scrutinise suspect cases and cancel ration cards in case of violations.