<span style="color: #222222;">The Centre has extended the deadline given to all States and Union Territories to complete the seeding of Aadhaar numbers with all ration cards till 30th of September this year. It also clarified that until then no genuine beneficiary will be denied from entitled quota of food grains and their names or ration cards will not be d or cancelled only on the ground of not possessing an Aadhaar number. Ministry of Consumer Affairs has issued clear instructions to all States  in this regard.  <br />''<br />''The Ministry also rejected media reports that ration cards of those who do not provide Aadhar number will be cancelled. It has also issued instructions that food grains under National Food Security Act, NFSA will not be denied due to failure of biometric Aadhaar authentication of beneficiary because of poor biometrics, issues with network connectivity or linking or any other technical reasons. The Ministry said, during the current crisis situation, a pragmatic approach is needed so that no poor or deserving person or family is denied access to food grains.  <br />'' <br />''At present, nearly 90 per cent of all 23.5 crore ration cards are already seeded with the Aadhaar numbers of ration card holders  whereas, nearly 85 per cent of all 80 crore beneficiaries have also seeded their Aadhaar number with their ration cards. In order to achieve seamless inter-state portability transactions of a ration card, it is essential to have a Centralized Repository for maintaining unique ration cards and beneficiaries' data of all states covered under NFSA. The Ministry said, therefore, seeding of Aadhaar numbers becomes critical in establishing a unique record of each eligible ration card holder under NFSA  so that his or her entitlement is protected.</span><br />