Iris method in all ration shops in State

Hyderabad: The State government has taken a decision to supply essential commodities to ration card holders smoothly through Iris system. The system will be implemented phase wise all over the State. The Civil Supplies Department will be implementing the programme from August 15 in Peddapalli, Mancherial, Sircilla and Yadadri districts.

Civil Supplies Commissioner Akun Sabharwal held a review meeting with the Civil Supplies officials of Peddapalli and Mancherial on Monday. He visited Fair Price Shops in the district and inspected ration commodities’ distribution. On his visit to ration shops, the Commissioner noticed defects in finger print mechanism. 

Some of the beneficiaries complained to the Commissioner about the finger print problem while taking commodities.The State government was supplying ration commodities with finger print identification. But, in some cases, mainly with elder people and women, they got rashes in their fingers or wiped off prints due to the Epos machines.

The department has authorised VROs, VAOs and Civil Supplies Inspectors to solve this problem. It came to the notice of the Commissioner that at some places this authorisation has been misused. Iris method can speed up to tackle this problem.

At the review meeting, the Commissioner said Iris will be introduced in all 17,200 ration shops in the State step by step. In the first phase, it will be introduced in Peddapalli, Mancherial, Sircilla and Yadadri districts from August 15. In the second phase from September 1, it will be implemented in districts of Siddipet, Jagtial and Mahbubnagar and then from September 25 in the remaining districts. 

The department has been taking all measures to see that all the beneficiaries get the essential commodities supplied by the government on subsidy. Akun Sabharwal said Iris will help largely for supplying essential commodities to all the beneficiaries without any difficulty, irregularities. Efforts were being made to implement Iris system in the entire State at the earliest.