Those living in Maharashtra will soon have computerized, barcode-based ration cards.
The Maharashtra government has embarked on an ambitious plan to issue computerised, barcode-based ration cards within the next eight months in a bid to overhaul the operations of the Public Distribution System.
Spanco Telesystems and Solutions Ltd, a leading systems integration and business process outsourcing companies has bagged from the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection department to execute this plan.
The scheme is designed to ensure that the right beneficiary avails the desired amount of food grains and other benefits. The entire rationing system in the state will undergo a sea change with the issuing of over 1.8 crore (18 million) computerised barcode-based laminated ration cards to every household.
In a media statement, Kapil Puri, chairman and managing director of Spanco, said: "We are proud to partner with the government of Maharashtra on a project like this which will benefit households across the length and breadth of the state. It has been our constant endeavor to provide innovative and holistic solutions for complex issues."
The project will be completed in three years and cover about 106,740 fair price shops, 354 taluka supply offices, 33 district supply offices, 5 regional offices, and 44 rationing offices.
The scope of work includes data entry, digitisation of the existing 1.8 crore beneficiaries, capturing of photograph and fingerprints of the head of the family of each household, use of biometric fingerprint matching to avoid duplication of cards, printing and preparation of barcode-based laminated ration cards.
Apart from this all the 474 FCS offices, including head office, divisional offices and taluka offices have to be networked by using MPLS/VPN broadband connectivity. A high-tech data centre shall be deployed and be connected through 4Mbps link to the rest of the department offices across the state.
All the FCS offices will have to be given a desktop computer along with printers and scanners, and 33 various application software modules will have to be developed and integrated. All the 106,740 fair price shops shall be issued with point of sale terminals having smart card, magnetic stripe and barcode readers to read the computerized ration card.
The transaction done at the ration shop shall be stored in the POS terminal and uploaded to the data centre in regular intervals. About 900 GPS instruments shall be fitted in the vehicles carrying food grains from FCI go-down to state godowns and they will be tracked from the data centre, so that pilferage can be stopped.
The entire solution shall be designed by using centralised Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and all the applications will be hosted from the data centre.
Spanco has partnered with Mastek as its partner in this project for developing the entire application software. Spanco will deploy 1,100 people across the state to run the project and an additional 1,500 staff to do the data entry and digitisation of all the existing 1.8 crore beneficiary records to complete the entire scope of work and make the system live within 8 months of signing the contract.
The beneficiary/household will avail the computerised ration card and pay a nominal fee fixed by the department for it.
The fees for various types of cards like, Annapurna, Antyordaya, BPL, APL and White, shall be notified by the government through a gazette notification.
