India, July 28 -- The Delhi government has ordered the cancellation of 179,000 ration cards after identifying them as ineligible and/or duplicate during a scrutiny exercise to weed out such cards from the public distribution system, officials said on Monday.

According to an order issued by the Department of Food, Supplies and Consumer Affairs on July 22, a total of 179,825 ration cards, covering 745,107 beneficiaries, will be cancelled or deleted from the database at the headquarters level. The action follows scrutiny under four categories flagged by the department's dashboard.

The move is aimed at ensuring that benefits under the National Food Security Act reach only eligible households by removing ineligible, inactive, deceased and du...