All ration shops in Delhi to be computerised by 2016

New Delhi: All ration depots in the national capital will be computerised by 2016, a move which will help check malpractices in the public distribution system, a senior Delhi Government official said.

At present, 42 depots in Delhi have computerised system and the government plans to float a tender for computerisation of remaining shops by end of this month. There are 280 fair price shops in the city.

"There are a few people in the system who are corrupt and the practice has affected the proper distribution of ration among the needy people. The only way we have to check these malpractices is by computerisation of ration depots," said SS Ghonkrokta, Special Commissioner, Food and Supplies.

"Once we have all the details in our database, we can distribute the ration after matching it with the details on an individual's Aadhar card," he added.

Ghonkrokta was answering queries at a public hearing on the implementation of the National Food Security Act organised by Right to Food Campaign activists. He assured the people present that the department would look into the issues raised and along with the community try to resolve them.

Delhi Rozi Roti Adhikar Abhiyan, which organised the public hearing, will also present a report to the department in this regard.

"Tenders for computerisation of all depots will be floated in the month of September and ration will be distributed by biometric or by OTPs. We plan to implement the programme within six months and eliminate fake people from the lists by May next year," the official said.

"We got feedback that the system is running smoothly at the 42 shops but the ration depot owners are not interested in such system because we can monitor everything online unlike earlier when we had to visit the shops to check their accounts," he said.

The official said that corruption had affected the supply of ration and the government is trying to workout a mechanism to eradicate it.

"Even we don't know whether all the names in the lists exists on ground or not. In some cases we took data from the Income Tax department and if a vehicle is issued on the name of applicant so we don't include them in the list," he said.