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Lockdown relief reveals Purulia secret: PDS cards as loan collateral -Ravik Bhattacharya & Joyprakash Das

-The Indian Express

Officials said 24 such families had approached them in Surjamata alone, a village of 150 families. Most people here work as daily wagers, owning no land and barely any possessions.

Purulia (West Bengal): Bordering Jharkhand, the district of Purulia in West Bengal has zero cases of coronavirus. However, that is not the only COVID-19 story here. With the state government announcing free ration under PDS for six months to help families tide over the lockdown, officials stumbled upon a hurdle they say they were unaware of: families having handed over their PDS cards as collateral to moneylenders for amounts they borrowed years ago.

Lying on a cot in his house in Surjamata village, an ailing Gour Kalindi, 80, shows the PDS card now back with him after 10 years, when he and his wife Shyamala handed it over as “bandhak (collateral)” to a “mahajan” for Rs 3,000. He needed the money for an illness which never went away.

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