E-ration cards in state from July 1
The new system will ensure there is no pilferage in the PDS…Chittaranjan Tembhekar
The new system will ensure there is no pilferage in the PDS…Chittaranjan Tembhekar
Now your quota of essential commodities can be assured by the Maharashtra government with it vowing to leave no scope for pilferage in the ration distribution system. The ration card networking across the state is going digitized with broadband connectivity. After Haryana, Maharashtra is going to be the second state in the country to introduce e-governance in rationing.
The state administration is embarking upon the huge exercise akin to one of election I-cards during the tenure of the then chief election commissioner TN Seshan in 1994 to issue over 1.8 crore electronic photo ration cards to benefit a populace of around four crore. The state government had found that its subsidies did not reach the people due to several fake rackets operating in the system and hopes that the digitalization would offer transparency in record maintenance and ration distribution.
It is a challenging task to distribute digital barcode-based cards within eight months by computerising 1,06,740 fair price shops across the state, reveals Kapil Puri, chairman of Spanco Telesystems & Solutions Ltd, the company which has bagged the state government contract. In the new system, the cards under Antyodaya Scheme would be distributed free of cost, while the remaining for comparatively higher income groups would be charged from Rs10 to Rs25 each under different schemes meant for them. The actual card distribution is expected to start from July 1, 2008 whereas the process of procurement of office spaces and hardware has already begun.
We will capture the photograph and fingerprint of head of the family in each household and will match it every time they buy it to avoid duplication of rationing and card distribution, reveals Ravi Bhatnagar, Spancos senior vice-president for business development.