Pune will be first to get biometric ration cards

In what could revolutionise the public distribution system (PDS), the office of the Food Distribution Officer (FDO), Pune has embarked upon an ambitious project of digitalising details of the more than 7 lakh ration cards in the district along with details of the 1,000-odd fair price shops in the eight zones that fall under it. Pune district is the first in the state where this unique project is being implemented.

Also, in order to prevent blackmarketing of grains, the office would be sending group SMSes to citizens as soon as trucks loaded with grains leave for the shops from the godowns.

Vaishali Chavan, assistant FDO, said that digitalisation of details of 1,000 fair price shops in the eight zones of the district is nearing completion. “To weed out bogus ration cards, last year the FDO had undertaken a major drive asking fair price shops to submit details of ration cards they were catering to,” she said.

The details submitted included names, addresses and other details of the more than 7 lakh ration card holders in the city.

These details were fed into a specially designed software. The software would also display the quantity of grain each card holder is eligible.

“Although we weeded out around 2 lakh bogus cards, there still might be duplications in the list. Once all details are fed into the software, it would be able to check for duplications and those cards would be deleted,” she said.

The software would allow the FDO and citizens to keep track of distribution of grains. Chavan said the software would undergo a dry run. “Depending on the performance of the software, we will go in for enhancements in it,” she said.

The FDO is planning to send out group SMSes as soon as they are lifted from the godowns. “In the first phase, we have selected 20 people per zone who will receive the SMSes. These include social workers and members of the vigilance committee,” she said.