Tel govt saved 2 lakh tonnes of PDS rice through ePOS project

The Telangana government's ePOS project has managed to save 2 lakh tonnes of rice worth Rs 578 crore by ensuring that it reached genuine beneficiaries through public distribution system, a top official said today.
The ePOS (electronic point of sale), launched as a pilot project by Civil Supplies Department in 2016, was subsequently introduced in around 17,000 Fair Price Shops across the state.
"The department has successfully completed the toughest IT Project by putting in place ePos in around 17,000 Fair Price Shops in Telangana. These shops have been fully automated with ePOS project," Civil Supplies Commissioner C V Anand told reporters here.

He said the ePos helped in distribution of ration commodities to the real beneficiaries and the return of the surplus (commodities) to the government with correct weight measures.
"This system is successful in putting barriers on black marketing of commodities meant for Public Distribution System (PDS) and the misbehaviour of fair price shops dealers," he said.
In March 2016, ePOS was started as a pilot project by introducing it in 1545 ration shops in Greater Hyderabad Zone, he said.

Explaining the ePos functioning, Anand said ePos machines with a display board and a keypad are incorporated to weighing machine, and finger prints of beneficiaries and ration dealers are collected and saved in the machine.

Aadhaar cards of beneficiaries are linked to the machines.
Commodities are supplied to the beneficiary concerned with a print copy of the details and all these transactions are done online.
Commodities are rendered to any family member of the beneficiary, whose finger print and Aadhaar card are linked to the ePos machine, he said.
After Telangana was formed in 2014, every individual eligible beneficiary in a family gets 6 kg of rice at Rs 1 per kg monthly.
"Statewide, 85 lakh families are distributed with PDS rice and for this Civil Supplies Department is supplying 1.75 lakh tonnes of rice," he said.

Anand said that after introducing ePos system, a surplus of 20,000 metric tonnes of rice is saved every month.
"For distributing rice at Rs 1 per kg, the government is spending Rs 27 per kg, i.e. the government is bearing subsidy of Rs 26 per kg. In 23 months, since introduction of the ePOS project till this month, as many as 4.20 crores transactions are carried out. A total of Rs 578.90 crore value of 2,15,759 metric tonnes of rice is saved to the government," Anand said.
On other initiatives undertaken by the department, Anand said beneficiaries can get commodities from any ration shop in their respective districts through ration portability.

Information about ration commodities is made available to the beneficiaries through SMSs to their mobile phones, the civil supplies commissioner said.