Hyderabad: Residents of West Bengal who were excluded from the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls face the prospect of losing their ration and other welfare benefits, after the state’s Civil Supplies Department announced it would mark the ration cards of such individuals as “inactive.”
Those flagged as absent, shifted, duplicate or dead in the draft list published in December last year will be ineligible for Public Distribution System (PDS) benefits. People omitted from electoral rolls in subsequent supplementary lists, unmapped voters excluded after the hearing process and persons removed from the rolls after adjudication will also lose access to subsidised ration.
The order, issued on the basis of the SIR that concluded recently, came into effect from June 4. The verification drive is set to continue till June 15.
In a limited relief, those who have filed appeals before appellate tribunals or submitted applications under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will continue receiving benefits until their process concludes, the department said.
Earlier, on May 27, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari had announced that at least 30 lakh beneficiaries of a cash transfer scheme for women would also become ineligible after being removed from the voter list.
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Owaisi questions the move
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday, June 6, questioned the decision, saying welfare benefits cannot be contingent on whether a person’s name appears on a voter list.
Posting on X, Owaisi said many of those excluded, including people marked as “absent” or “shifted,” or those who did not receive voter slips during the last election, are genuine voters and eligible citizens.
“Why should access to ration or welfare depend on whether your name is on the voter list? What is the point of Aadhaar authentication if the voter roll is being used as the deciding factor,” he said.
The West Bengal government has linked welfare benefits to the voter list and is now denying PDS ration and other benefits to people excluded during SIR. This includes people marked as “absent” or “shifted”, and those who did not receive voter slips during the last election. But…— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) June 6, 2026
The AIMIM chief alleged that the exercise looks less like voter verification and more like an attempt to slash beneficiary numbers while making life harder for the poorest, particularly women, Scheduled Castes (SC) and Muslims.
He said government schemes are not a favour to voters but a right of every eligible citizen, and accused the state government of treating PDS benefits as the “chief minister’s personal charity.” Public welfare schemes are funded by taxpayer money, he added.
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