Smart Ration Card Scheme to be launched in June- Bharat Bhushan Ashu

Smart Ration Card Scheme, the Aadhaar enabled Public Distribution System is all set to be launched in June, informed Bharat Bhushan Ashu, the Food & Civil Supplies Minister Punjab.To minimize diversion, leakage, pilferage and to bring transparency in the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) and to ensure that eligible beneficiaries get their entitled quota, Captain Amrinder Singh led State Government initiated the distribution of wheat to the eligible beneficiaries through ePoS (Electronic Point of Sale) devices. At present there are 3526775 families comprising of nearly 1.37crore individuals which are covered under TPDS. Till date 98.24% families and 95.26% individual beneficiaries on the portal have been seeded with their Aadhaar numbers which will decimate the probability of bogus/ghost beneficiaries.Further, the entire Supply Chain right from the wheat procurement from the Mandis, its transfer to godowns, thereafter its transportation to Fair Price Shops and last but not the least its distribution to the beneficiaries will be tracked on State Transparency portal.Public Distribution will be Aadhaar enabled through ePoS devices using biometrics. In case the finger biometric doesn't work due to any reason, the IRIS enabled identification will be done. Government has made available the weighing scales for accurate measures through BECIL (Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited) a Government of India's PSU. In the State of Punjab, the Inspector Centric Model is in place and the beneficiaries are distributed wheat twice a year i.e., six months quota at one time by the concerned Inspector. There are approximately 16000 Fair Price Shops in the State and under the End to End Computerization nearly 1400 inspectors of the department would use on rotation basis an e-PoS (Electronic Point of Sale) machine each, for approximately 10-12 Fair Price Shops (FPS)falling in their domain.