UP to install Point of Sales machines at ration shops

Aims to cut pilferage at about 73,328 govt-controlled ration shops in the state serving over 36 mn card holders

To cut pilferage in the public distribution system (PDS), the Uttar Pradesh government is mulling setting up point of sales (PoS) machines at the state fair price ration shops.

There are 73,328 government-controlled ration shops in the state to service over 36 million card holders.

Under the scheme being considered by the UP food and civil supplies department, the ration card holders would be provided with smart punch cards, which would contain their biometric information.

When the card is punched/swiped at the designed ration shop, all the connected databases would get updated. This is aimed at cutting manual fudging with inventory records and later diverting the subsidised food grain (chiefly wheat and rice) in the open market by the private ration shop owner.

UP principal secretary food and civil supplies department Sudhir Garg told Business Standard the plan was under the active consideration and would be rolled out within this financial year.

"We are working out the modalities of the scheme," he added saying any new system is expected to further improving the processes and curb pilferages.

The budge of the UP food and civil supplies department for the current 2015-16 fiscal is over Rs 7,500 crore.

Under PDS, the government supplies highly subsidised food grain to the card holders, which are further segregated under Above poverty line (APL), below poverty line (BPL) and Antyodaya (poorest amongst the BPL families). APL, BPL and Anyyodaya card holders number over 2.59 crore, 61.75 lakh and 39.71 lakh respectively.

The price for different commodities charged from various card holders differs. For example in UP, the wheat price for APL, BPL and Antyodaya card holder is Rs 6.60, Rs 4.65 and Rs 2 per kg respectively.

In UP, the targetted per month requirement of wheat and rice for BPL and Antyodaya card holders alone is over 123 tonnes and 111 tonnes respectively.

During his April 2015 visit to Lucknow, union minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution Ram Vilas Paswan had blamed the "faulty" mandi (state agricultural marketing/procurement) system in UP for the low procurement of wheat and rice despite the state being amongst the top producing states.

Overall production of wheat in UP is roughly 35 MT and procurement in central pool during the last two years had been merely 6,82,000 tonnes and 6,28,000 tonnes respectively, which is under two percent of total production against the national average of 30 percent.

The annual requirement of wheat and rice in UP region is about 4.80 MT and 3.20 MT respectively. Paswan said due to low procurement in UP, about 6.40 MT of food grain had been inducted by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) from Punjab and Haryana during 2014-15 for the PDS.

He had also urged the state government to implement Food Security Act so that the public distribution system (PDS) becomes more systematic and greater benefit percolates to the poor.