BHOPAL: Following regular reports of clashes at Fair Price Shops (FPS) due to malfunctioning POS machines, the government has taken a decision to switch to off-line distribution system for Bhopal and Indore. Only 31 per cent of the monthly quota has been distributed in Bhopal and 32 per cent in Indore so far.
Grains will be distributed through FPSs on the basis of Aadhar Cards or any ID-proof as the Point of Sale (POS) machines being used for biometric verification of beneficiaries have developed technical snags. Offline system will be applied only in Bhopal and Indore Municipal Corporation limits and only for November.
Previously, grains were distributed after verification of customers online but due to various reasons like slow servers and other technical snags. The POS did not work and grains were not distributed to the customers.
On Wednesday, MLA Rameshwar Sharma had to face the people’s ire. He was surrounded by irate customers at Vineet Kunj, Kolar, who were complaining of non-working POS machines.
But collector Nishant Warbade showed his inability to order offline distribution as there was no provision for it.
Later, however it was decided that the grains will be distributed under supervision of monitoring committee and Ration Card Holders will have to show photo copies of Adhar Cards. Distribution process will be video-graphed .
SDM (Huzur) Maya Awasthi said, “Finger prints are matched through POS machines but as servers are down the POS machines do not work. And there is no provision for offline distribution. That was the reason behind chaos at FPS, Vineet Kunj, Kolar.”
MLA Rameshwar Sharma said, “Finger prints are matched but how the finger prints of a labourer whose fingers get injured while working at a construction will match in POS. Secondly, their servers always remain down. This led to resentment in public. We talked to the collector Nishant Warbade stating that at any cost, grains should be distributed offline from Thursday. Now I have come to know that government has taken a decision to switch to manual verification for the current month. I welcome it.”
