Project Description

Consumer Affairs, Food and Civil Supplies Department manages the Public Distribution System (PDS) through which subsidized food grains, sugar and kerosene and other essential commodities are delivered to eligible beneficiaries in rural and urban areas every month. Food grains, mainly rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene are supplied to the eligible families holding ration cards at subsidized rates through the fair price shops (FPS) authorized by the Department, spread all over the state.

There is a need to conceptualize a system that would effectively become an end-to-end solution that manages the entire system, in order to ensure the following objectives: 

1. To ensure that only a genuine cardholder or his/her family member whose name is listed in the ration card can draw the commodities with the help of Aadhaar technology platform, thus aiming to eliminate withdrawal of commodities by others.

2. To record all FPS and transactions electronically, which enables real time MIS on opening stock, daily sales and closing stock etc.

3. To facilitate monthly allotment of Stock to FPSs based on real time MIS of stock position availability.

4. To facilitate monitoring and detection of any fraudulent transactions.

5. To establish a communication channel with beneficiaries (by way of sending SMS on arrival of goods & on purchase of goods), which promotes transparency as well as savings in time & money on account of unproductive trips to FPS by beneficiaries, for finding out stock arrival.

6. To ensure that the cardholder receives exact quantities of essential commodities as per his/her entitlement.

7. To cover all excluded beneficiaries for inclusive growth.

8. To implement portability for drawing Ration anywhere.

9. To provide on-demand Ration card to all the eligible beneficiaries.

10. To help bring in transparency and accountability in the overall Public Distribution System.

11. To ensure PDS benefits are delivered only to intended beneficiaries using biometric authentication.

12. Protecting the interest of and empowering the end beneficiary.

13. Timely and need based food grain allocation.

14. To improve transparency and accountability in operations.

15. Reduction of stakeholders’ grievances.

16. Dissemination of the information as per the public requirements.

17. To record real time information related to the FPS transactions and make them readily available for future planning and analysis. 

18. To weed out the fake/duplicate/false beneficiary.

19. To implement AADHAAR based authentication at the Point of Sale (POS) i.e., at FPS. 

20. To enable PDS/direct cash transfer for various Government Schemes.

To deliver such an elaborate system, there was need to have a database that houses the stocks in FPS and records the transactions that take place there against the Ration Card Holder who transacts. On the other hand, there is a need to establish all this against the identity of the beneficiary to ensure that the benefits accrue only to the targeted beneficiaries. Use of biometrics to determine the identity has been acknowledged a success. The determination of identity of a Ration Card Holder could also be efficiently established with the help of biometrics. This data along with the personal data of card holders and their families including details like name, age, gender, caste, category of beneficiary etc. are captured by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). 

Henceforth, designing and development of Aadhaar Enabled Payment Disbursement System was done, in order to achieve the objectives of the solution defined by the department.