Ration card portability across State from today

Hyderabad: The ration cardholders will now be able to get commodities from any of the fair price shop (FPS) within a particular district in the State. The new feature of “portability” comes into effect throughout the State from March 1 as part of the upgraded ePoS (electronic Point of Sale) mechanism. 

According to officials, the project was taken up as a pilot project in the Greater Hyderabad in June 2017 and by January 2018, a total of 12,26,833 transactions were carried out through ration portability out of 26,65,631, helping almost half of the beneficiaries. As beneficiaries are availing commodities from the ration shops of their choice, it led to intense competition among the rations dealers. 

“The dealers who are reliable and genuinely maintaining the timetable are doing good business and those who are not paying much attention to consumers are gradually losing business to a great extent. Impact is very severe on the ration dealers who are indiscipline, arrogant and not maintaining timetable,” said C V Anand, Commissioner, Civil Supplies Department. After operating the “portability” in each district for two months, the Statewide “portability” will be implemented after “stabilisation” across 16,812 fair price shops. This will help the beneficiaries avail themselves of the PDS (Public Distribution Services) from anywhere in the State.  

As part of rationalisation, the Civil Supplies Department has also taken a decision to distribute the commodities under PDS from 1st of each month till 15th. Earlier, the ration was being distributed till the month-end generating inefficiency in handling the logistics. 

The provision of holiday, including weekly holiday during the 15 day period, has also been removed. Even this change will also come into effect from March 1. For implementing this, changes are also being made transporting dates, Closing Balance (CB), DKR generation and Release Order (RO).  

From 16th of each month, the focus of the department will be on distribution of rice and other commodities to FPS. The process will begin, with ration dealers getting release orders from officials within three days. 

Later till end of the month the commodity distribution will be completed, which begins from warehouse to MLS (Mandal Level Stocklist) point to ration shops. “The officials will monitor all the transactions from department’s head office and also at district level,” added the official.