Ration card holders can now buy food grains from any fair price shop in Delhi

The Delhi government on Monday launched a scheme, enabling the ration card holders from any fair price shop (FPS) in the city. Currently, the ration under public distribution system can be bought only from the registered ration shops in the locality.

The Delhi government on Monday launched a scheme, enabling the ration card holders to buy from any fair price shop (FPS) in the city. Currently, the ration under public distribution system can be bought only from the registered ration shops in the locality.

Terming the move as a New Year gift to the beneficiaries, food and civil supplies minister Imran Hussain on Monday said that the ration distribution at all fair price shops of the city has been made online. (AFP File)

Terming the move as a New Year gift to the beneficiaries, food and civil supplies minister Imran Hussain on Monday said that the ration distribution at all fair price shops of the city has been made online.

He said that digitisation was made possible with the department starting distributing ration through e-point of sale device (e-PoS) at all 2,254 fair-price shops on one-month trial basis. The consumers can either pay cash or online.

The minister said after the trial run, the government may consider a complete roll out from February.

“We have introduced ration portability scheme under which ration card holders can procure ration from any fair-price shop while shifting completely to the PoS device. However, this facility will be available only for online transactions. To avail this facility, biometric data of the beneficiaries must match the official record,” Hussain told reporters.

Currently, the Delhi government distributes specified food articles to the tune of 3.75 lakh quintals to 72.78 lakh beneficiaries per month in the national capital.

The minister said that the new system would have a robust mechanism for verification of beneficiaries through the Aadhar authentication, and has features to monitor transactions online.

“Distribution of food grains to 8% of the total card holders will be allowed off line so that the beneficiaries whose Aadhar authentication either fails or who still do not possess Aadhar cards do not face problem,” Hussain said.

The minister also said that the department has agreed to consider a long pending demand of FPS owners to increase the margin money in order to enable them to bear the costs of running the shops.

“The department has made a proposal to increase the margin money for fair price shop owners from Rs 70 per quintal to Rs 200 per quintal (from 70 paisa per kg to Rs 2 per kg) which is under active consideration of the government. The proposal will soon be tabled in the Cabinet meeting for the approval,” the minister said.