e-Pos system shows positive results

Vikarabad: The initiatives taken up by the officials of civil supplies have been paying off with the transparency in distribution yielding the desired results. The e-PoS system in civil supplies was introduced in Hyderabad and Vikarabad as pilot project. When the system started showing positive results, it was extended to remaining districts.

Almost 70 percent of people depend on agriculture in the district. Remaining people are employed in unorganised sectors. The civil supplies department has been distributing daily essentials like rice, sugar, dal, oil etc to almost 2.33 lakh poor families through 588 fair price shops across the 18 mandals in the district. Rice is being given to the families who have food security cards. Each beneficiary gets six kg of rice per month. All these details were entered in registers and kept in files. Some people used this procedure for their own benefit and diverted rice to open markets. The civil supplies department took several initiatives to check these irregularities. The e-PoS system was introduced and finger prints of the beneficiaries were also checked before releasing their quota. Even electronic weighing machines to stop irregularities in measures. The technology doesn’t’ continue the distribution if the delivery is lesser in small quantity. All the transactions can be viewed online.

Earlier, dealers used to sell the leftovers in open market. But, in present conditions, the leftovers has to be sent back to warehouses of civil supplies departments. All the transactions are checked time to time and the irregularities have been come down drastically.

As much as 5, 300 tonnes of rice is distributed through fair price shops in which almost 85 percent is distributed to the food security card holders. Earlier, the leftover rice was misused by some. But now there is no such chance for them. As a result, the subsidy amount of Rs 1.82 crore is saved for the government.