Smart Card Based Delivery of Essential Commodities

   Government has issued directions to State Governments to streamline functioning of TPDS by enforcing provisions of PDS (Control) Order, 2001. Besides this, the Government has also issued instructions to States/UTs to strengthen TPDS by improving monitoring mechanism and vigilance, increased transparency in functioning of TPDS, use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools and improving the efficiency of Fair Price Shop operations.

   Government has approved implementation of the scheme of computerization of TPDS operations in phased manner to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the TPDS. In the first phase, the scheme has been approved to be implemented on pilot basis in three districts each of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh and Delhi and piloting of food grain bag tracking in one district in Chhattisgarh with the outlay of Rs. 53.47 crore. First installment of Rs.14.77 crore (Andhra Pradesh – Rs.4.405 crore, Assam – Rs.
3.485 crore, Chhattisgarh – Rs.4.085 crore and Delhi – Rs.2.80 crore) has been released to the State Governments.

   To improve quality of delivery of services under TPDS and to assess reliability of new technologies, a pilot scheme on Smart Card based delivery of essential commodities was approved for Chandigarh UT and Haryana with an outlay of Rs.142.29 crore. Under the scheme, existing ration cards are to be replaced by Smart Cards. These Smart Cards as well as Smart Card transaction terminals will store details of transactions of TPDS commodities issued. The delivery of essential commodities to Smart Card holder’s families will be made from the fair price shops only after verification of genuineness of the smart card holder through smart card transaction terminal. The smart cards as well as smart card transaction terminals will store details of transactions of TPDS commodities issued. An amount of Rs.25 crore to the Government of Haryana, Rs.1.10 crore to Chandigarh UT and Rs. 1.00 crore to National Informatics Center (NIC) has been released in advance as first installment. Chandigarh UT Administration and Government of Haryana have completed trial run on 7th June, 2010 and 17th June, 2010 respectively.

    This information was given by Prof. K.V. Thomas, Minister of State for Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today.

SOURCE - PIB