A 58-year-old woman in Jharkhand’s Giridih died allegedly due to starvation after a government ration card was denied to her by officials, said an NDTV report.
Savitri Devi died on Sunday. She didn’t have anything to eat for three days. “Due to the negligence of authorities, her ration card could not be made, which is why she was unable to get food,” a district official Sheetal Prasad told ANI.
Savitri Devi’s daughter-in-law Saraswati Devi said she made repeated requests for a ration card but no one in the administration helped. “She had no food since last three days…it became worse because we could not contact her,” she said.
Savitri Devi has two sons who do odd jobs for a living. Sometimes they even beg for food.
The lawmaker from her area, Jagarnath Mahto said that the “matter was of great concern.” Without specifying what action he would take against the officials, he said the issue would be raised in the state assembly.
Not the first instance in recent times
Six months ago, Shakina Ashfaq from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh died allegedly due to starvation after remaining hungry for five days. She did not receive the monthly quota of food grains from the Public Distribution System (PDS) store because she was not present for fingerprint authentication of Aadhaar as she was paralysed, said an NDTV report.
Shakina was a cardholder of the Antodaya Anna Yojana, a scheme for the poorest of the poor. Later, an inquiry conducted by Yogi Adityanath government pointed out that she died due to some illness.
In February another woman from Jharkhand had died of starvation because she did not have an Aadhaar card.
The Union Food Ministry in a statement had said that the Centre was aware of the challenges in the ‘point of sale-based Aadhaar authentication system‘ in the PDS. The states were asked not to deny ration to the poor.
(With inputs from ANI)