Punjab Government would provide smart ration cards to as many as 36 lakh National Food Security Act (NFSA) families. At the same time, the ration distribution process has also been made computerized to bring in transparency.

“This will ensure that the families entitled under NFSA scheme get the entitled benefit and this will also help the Government to deliver the services effectively and with full transparency,” said the state Food, Civil Supply and Consumer Affairs Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu on Sunday.

Giving detail regarding feature of Smart Ration Cards, Ashu said that these will be used for withdrawing the food grains from Fair Price Shops (FPS) through e-PoS machines without carrying any additional document. “The Smart Ration Card will be swiped on the e-PoS machine to fetch family details, after which the bio-metrics authentication of the family member will be done to withdraw the food grains. The Cards can also be used for intra-state portability,” he said.

Explaining about the security features of Smart Ration Card, Ashu said that the beneficiaries’ details integrated in the chip will be locked which will be read from authenticated devices only. “The file structure is designed in such a way that it will be operated through the authenticated e-PoS machines only,” he added.

The Minister said that the cards have security features that will be visible under ultra violet light, and the micro text technology is also being used in the Smart Rations Cards which cannot be visible through naked eyes.

The QR Code printed or the back side of the Cards is a combination of more than one fields. In addition to this, these Smart Ration Cards will also be integrated with State Family ID, which is issued by the Punjab Government under Unified State Identity Card for availing the benefits of all Central or State schemes to which the family is entitled.

This Unified State ID will help the State to create a database of the families or citizens covered under various schemes.

To make the ration distribution process transparent and to plug any pilferage, the Minister said that the work of Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) has been computerized.

He said that following this process across Punjab, all beneficiaries are being distributed ration through 1617 e-PoS Machines after authenticating their biometrics and Aadhar numbers and e-PoS Machines have also been linked with eye scanners and weighing scale.

There are approximately 17,366 fair price shops across Punjab and depot holders are paid margin money at the rate of Rs 50 per quintal as advance for distribution of wheat.