3-month rice quota causes long queues, tech failures leave many frustrated
Hyderabad: Thousands of ration card-holders queued up at fair price (FP) shops on Sunday with huge bags to get their fine rice quota for the next three months. The government, on directions from the Centre, is distributing three months of fine rice at once, to avoid hardships to beneficiaries in view of the early monsoon and forecast of bountiful rain.
Though people had a smile when he queued up on Sunday morning, it faded away as the wait got longer. The transactions got delayed because the FP shops had to capture the biometrics of each beneficiary thrice as they availing the fine rice for three months.
Citizens raised complaints regarding the biometric authentication system, citing frequent failures in fingerprint recognition, server errors, and slow response times at the Point of Sale (PoS) machines.
The waiting time varied different places. At Champapet, some were able to get it within one and a half hours while at Bachupally it was over five hours. Some angry beneficiaries in Bachupally visited the civil supplies main offices demanding an immediate change in the biometric software used by FP shop dealers.
As the beneficiaries were extremely angry, the shop was closed four times. “We’ve been sitting here since morning, but the server is still down. No one is telling us when it will be fixed.” said Prasad Raju, a resident from Bachupally.
At Balajinagar, Champapet FP shop, the distribution was halted for more than an hour. “We waited for a long time. Even after the system worked, it took more than 15 minutes per person as the ration was given for three months,” said B.Srikanth.
According to the officials of civil supplies department, the reason for delay was the web portal of the state civil supplies department being merged with the portal of the Central government. Officials said the issue was resolved soon, contradicting the claims of the beneficiaries.
