Gujarat government has decided to introduce hand-held terminals at all its fair price shops in the state with aim to bring transparency and eliminate irregularities in public distribution system.
The project is an initiative of the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs (FCSCA) department of the state government.
"This project will be beneficial for both the government as well as public. It will bring transparency and eliminate irregularities in public distribution system (PDS). The system can be run both on special devices called HHT (hand-held terminals) or through a normal laptop," R P Gupta, principal secretary of FCSCA department told PTI.
At present, there are around 17,200 ration shops, catering to more than 70 lakh households having ration cards in the state.
"We are having a centralised server with a PDS software, which will be installed in these devices. With this system, the consumer has to give his thumb print on the screen of HHT or finger print scanner attached to laptop while buying commodities from FPS," said Gupta.
"Since the device will be attached with our system, we would know how much quantity is actually given to the ration card holder, who will also be given the copy of bill from an attached printer. Thus, everything can be tracked by us in real time about what the consumer purchased and what he got from the shopkeeper," he said.
The department sells commodities to these shopkeepers from its godown as and when they require for their shops. In the present system, the shopkeeper submits the copies of all the bills to the department at the end of every month to settle his account.
