Delhi government asks Centre to implement ePoS-enabled doorstep ration delivery

The Delhi government has asked the Centre to consider implementation of an e-PoS (electronic point of sale) enabled doorstep delivery of ration scheme across the country. In a letter to Union minister for consumer affairs Ram Vilas Paswan, Delhi food minister Imran Hussain said that the existing e-PoS system has “serious irregularities and shortcomings” which he urged the Union minister to get investigated through the Delhi lieutenant governor.

Hussain said that a trial run of e-PoS system during January-March, 2018 had exposed several problems such as disbursing ration on fake cards, biometric authentication failure and multiple OTPs generated on mobile phones for fraudulent pilferage of grains and sugar. His letter was a reply to Paswan’s missive where the Union minister requested the state government to implement the e-PoS system. Hussain in his reply said the state government was not opposed to the idea of e-PoS in ration dispersal, but said the system needed improvement.

“May, I therefore, request you to consider implementing the e-PoS enabled doorstep delivery of ration throughout India,” Hussain wrote to Paswan. He said that technology-led reforms are the way forward but not rectifying the “loopholes” that have been noticed in the course of implementation of ePoS system will defeat the efforts at checking pilferage in the public distribution system.

Hussain’s request comes at a time when the AAP government in Delhi is pushing for implementation of doorstep delivery of ration in the national Capital. “The cabinet had decided to implement door step delivery of ration system. However, despite cabinet decision and a number of directions, the commissioner, food and civil supplies department, has deliberately not taken any step to implement it,” Hussain complained in his letter dated February 4, while seeking the food commissioner Mohanjeet Singh’s transfer.

In a separate order issued on the same day, the services department had relieved Singh of the additional charge of food and civil supplies. The services department, which comes under the L-G, appointed Ankita M Bundela, an IAS officer of 2001 batch, Delhi’s new food commissioner.

Hussain also asked the Union minister to take up with Delhi’s L-G the issue if investigating cases of corrupt practices in the city’s public distribution system.