On Wednesday(20th November), the Union Food Ministry informed that the government’s incredible drive towards digitisation has revolutionised India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) and established new standards for food security initiatives around the world.
According to an official statement, 5.8 crore phony ration cards have been eliminated as a result of the system’s makeover.
The system serves 80.6 crore beneficiaries and uses electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) verification and Aadhaar-based identification.
It further read, “These efforts have resulted in substantial reductions in leakages and enhanced targeting.”
The ministry mentioned that almost all of the 20.4 crore ration cards have been digitalized, with 98.7% of beneficiaries’ credentials being validated through biometric identification and 99.8% being connected to Aadhaar.
Aadhaar-based authentication during distribution is made possible by the ministry’s deployment of 5.33 lakh e-PoS (Electronic Point of Sale) devices throughout fair-pricing stores across the country, guaranteeing that beneficiaries are identified appropriately.
The press release stated, “Today, Aadhaar authentication is used for distributing approximately 98 per cent of total foodgrains, reducing leakages to ineligible beneficiaries and mitigating any risk of pilferage.”
The process is still in progress for the remaining PDS recipients in fair-price shops nationwide, while the government’s eKYC project has verified 64% of all PDS beneficiaries.
A vehicle position tracking system that is connected to railways for real-time food shipment monitoring is one of the end-to-end supply chain management systems that the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has put in place on the supply side.
The ‘One Nation One Ration Card system’ has made it accessible to beneficiaries to employ their current cards to collect rations anywhere in India, enabling statewide portability.
The ministry pointed out, “Through digitisation, rightful targeting, and supply chain innovations, the Government of India has set a global benchmark for state-sponsored food security initiatives.”
Ghost cards and fraudulent entries are removed from the system, and targeted delivery to actual beneficiaries is ensured by the digital transformation, which covers the whole PDS chain from procurement to distribution.
