West Bengal

Entitlements

Eligibility

Forms for NFSA/RKSY with Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria specified (in Bengali)

West Bengal has implemented near-universal coverage. There are two categories of ration cards 1) NFSA which includes AAY, SPHH and PHH and; 2) state RKSY I and II. 

1. National Food Security Act (NFSA)

The Socio-Economic Caste Census(SECC) has been done by using automatic exclusion criteria, automatic inclusion criteria and thereafter ranking the remaining households using deprivation indicators. The following parameters constitute each of the criteria as described herein below:

(i) Automatic Exclusion Criteria:

~ Motorized two/three/four wheelers/fishing boats(which require registration);

~ Mechanized three/four wheeler agricultural equipment such as tractors, harvesters etc;

~ Kisan Credit Card with the credit limit of Rs. 50,000/- and above;

~ Households with any member as Government Employee: gazetted/nongazetted/Central/State Government/PSU Government-aided autonomous bodies and local bodies;

~ Households with non-agricultural enterprise registered with the Government;

~ Any member in the family earning more than Rs. 10,000/- per month;

~ Paying income tax or professional tax;

~ Households with three or more rooms with all rooms having pucca walls and pucca roof;

~ Owning Refrigerator;

~ Owning landline phones;

~ Households owning 2.5 acres or more irrigated land with at least one irrigation equipment such as diesel/electric operated borewell/tubewell;

~ 5 acres or more land irrigated for two or more crop seasons;

~ Households owning 7.5 acres or more land with at least one irrigation equipment such as diesel/electric operated borewell/tubewell.

(ii) Automatic Inclusion Criteria:

~ Households without shelter;

~ Destitute/living on alms;

~ Manual scavengers;

~ Primitive Tribal Groups;

~ Legally released bonded labourers.

(iii) Deprivation Criteria:

~ Households with only one room with kucha walls and kucha roof;

~ Households with no adult member between age 16 to 59;

~ Female headed households with no adult male member between age 16 to 59;

~ Households with any disabled member and no able bodied adult member;

~ SC/ST households;

~ Households with no literate adult above 25 years;

~ Landless households deriving the major part of their income from manual casual labour; 

~ Households eligible under compulsory inclusion will have the highest priority

For the purpose of selection of NFSA beneficiaries each of these criterion shall be applied as follows:-

(i) The number of families under automatic exclusion in each district shall be automatically excluded from the SECC list;

(ii) The number of families under automatic inclusion shall be automatically included as the first priority under the NFSA beneficiaries list. Such families shall also automatically fall in the category of AAY beneficiaries.

(iii) Thereafter, the households which satisfy all the 7 deprivation criterion shall be treated as AAY beneficiaries subject to a ceiling on the number of households in each district. If such number of households are not exhausted by application of 7 deprivation criterion then the selection up to the number of households shall proceed by application of 6 deprivation criterion and onwards till such number of households are achieved.

(iv) Once the AAY households ceiling is achieved, the households consisting of families at least 1 deprivation criteria shall be treated as priority households. This, in effect, would mean that about 7.59 lakh households in the entire State may be treated as AAY households under NFSA, and another approximately 408.54 lakh individuals will be treated as priority household beneficiaries thereby leading to a total of 442.01 lakh beneficiaries in rural areas

 2) Rajya Khadya Suraksha Yojana (RKSY)

Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria and Application Form (in Bengali)

Forms

Forms for Inclusion and Rectification under NFSA/RKSY

Rural Areas

III - R Inclusion of Family

IV - R Inclusion of leftout Family members

V - R         Rectification of name and address

VI - R Change of FPS

Urban Areas

III - U Inclusion of Family

IV - U Inclusion of leftout Family members

V - U         Rectification of name and address

VI - U Change of FPS

Beneficiaries

Village and Ward List of Beneficiaries

State, District and Fair Price Shop List of Beneficiaries of all categories

Helpline

1800 345 5505 / 1967

Website

Food and Supplies Department (Government of West Bengal)

Contact

Minister (Department of Food and Supplies)

District Supply Officers (Department of Food and Supplies)

Members of Parliament - Lok Sabha | Rajya Sabha

Members of Legislative Assembly

Apply 

For expert assistance and to contact other members of the state campaign, please write to

Anuradha Talwar at pbkmswb@gmail.com

Complain

Lodge Online PDS Complaint

News

2016

West Bengal's PDS doing enormously well, says Jean Dreze (The Hindu-18-Jun-2016)

West Bengal can do better than just announcing food packages for Ramzan and Durga Puja (Anuradha Talwar, Scroll.in 17 June 2016)

West Bengal government to spend Rs 22 crore for distributing special Ramzan package (Economic Times 7 June 2016)

Activists demand expansion of PDS to provide food for all (Times of India 25 Feb 2016)

The Food Court (The Statesman 26 Feb 2016)

2014

“West Bengal ahead in Food Security Act”  (The Hindu, 1st July, 2014)

Mamata Banerjee Flays Centre over Food Security Act  (One India News, 30 June, 2014)

Non-BJP, non-Cong third front only alternative: Buddhadeb (Zee News, 14 April 2014)

117 homeless families get ration cards, minister pats own back (The Indian Express, 28 February 2014)

Mamata cautions Midnapore villagers against attempts to disrupt peace (Mizo News, 7 January 2014)