Hyderabad: Outgoing civil supplies commissioner C.V. Anand’s E-PoS (Electronic Point of Sale) initiative in public distribution system (PDS) could save Rs 578 crore in 23 months for the state government. The E-PoS project was successfully implemented in 17,000 PDS shops across the state during his tenure. Mr Anand, who created a record of becoming the first IPS officer in the state to head the civil supplies department in August 2016, is set to join Central services soon as Insp-ector-General of CISF. A saving of 12 to 15 per cent of rice stocks was witnessed every month which resulted in saving 2 lakh metric tonnes of rice for the government by effectively preventing diversion of unclaimed PDS rice from beneficiaries.
E-PoS helped in the distribution of ration commodities to the real beneficiaries and the return of the surplus to the government with correct weight measures. This system is successful in putting barriers on black marketing of commodities and irregularities of ration dealers. “The job of civil supplies commissioner was most challenging. It involves huge amount of public money. Now I can leave the mantle with utmost job satisfaction as we could save huge amount of public money within a short span by bringing reforms in PDS with the support of advanced technological initiatives. My task has been fulfilled,” Mr Anand said.
In March 2016, the project was started on a pilot basis in 1,545 ration shops under GHMC limits. Initially this system was effective by recognising fingerprints of the beneficiaries for distributing commodities. In the view of increasing cashless transactions, Mr Anand made changes in the machine, with better performance and at low cost for the state wide project. In addition to ePos, Android machine with 4 inch screen, Iris scanner, weighing machine to be operated by blue tooth, card swiping facility, Aadhaar Enabled Payment System and Audio Voice-Over Player system were added to the machine.
In some cases to overcome the difficulty in biometric system where finger prints are worn, Iris scanner were used, voice-over player system were introduced. These machines were procured for monthly rent of Rs. 1499 rent per month for each machine. These new machines were firstly introduced in 800 ration shops in Mahabubnagar district in April, 2017. On the successful implementation of the system it was introduced in all the ration shops, statewide in span of 10 months period phase wise. About 3 to 4 districts were covered in each phase.
Prior to this, ration dealers, traders supported each other in black marketing PDS rice. Even without giving rice to the beneficiaries it was recorded that the rice was delivered to them. Some dealers used to issue less quantity to the beneficiaries and sell rice in open market for higher price, Every ration shop used to have bogus cards, number of benami dealers were active. With the introduction of ePos machines this was controlled.
Infographic:
After Telangana government came every individual eligible beneficiary in the family monthly attains 6kg of rice at Rs. 1 per kg.
Statewide 85 lakh families are being distributed PDS rice, for this 1.75 lakh metric tonnes of rice is supplied.
With E-Pos, every month 20,000 MTs of rice is saved.
For distributing rice at Rs. 1 per kg, government spends Rs 27 per kg,
In 23 months, 4.20 crores transactions were carried resulting in Rs 578.90 crore worth 2,15,759 MTS of rice saving for government.
It is estimated to save up to Rs 850 crore every year hereon.
