Gokarna: The three brothers – Narayana, Venkataramma and Subbu of the Maru Mukhri family died between July 2 and July 13 in Belehittala. The reason? They were denied food because their ration card was not linked to Aadhaar. Local activists have claimed that the Maru Mukhri family was entitled to receive monthly subsidised rations owing to their “below the poverty line” status but, the family had not received rations since December 2016 as they did not posses an Aadhaar number.
Although the men are alleged to have died due to starvation, the district officials deny such a cause and claim that the men died due to alcoholism.
An exact cause of death cannot be ascertained in any of the brothers’ cases as a postmortem was never conducted.
A fact-finding report prepared by the activists confirms that when the first brother died, there were no food grains at their residence to nourish the family. The report also revealed that the local ration shop dealer as well as the block-level food inspector have admitted that the family’s ration card had been deleted from the Public Distribution System list as it was not linked to Aadhaar.
Since 2013, the Supreme Court has time and time again, asserted that the possession of an Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for anyone to avail of the various government welfare schemes, especially when it comes to buying foodgrains that are subsidised under the National Food Security Act.
In Karnataka alone, district officials in Mysuru have deleted around 80,000 ration cards from their PDS lists as they were not linked to Aadhaar, additionally labeling those ration cards as “fake”.
In Jharkhand, just a few days ago, a 9 year-old girl died begging for rice as her family had been denied food because their ration card was not linked to Aadhaar.
