Soon,smart cards to replace ration cards

It was decided that the system will be fully operational by the vendor for the first two years,though in the second year,the vendor will start involving manpower of the UT Food and Supplies (F&S) department.

During the third and fourth year,actual operations will be managed by the workforce of the F&S department and will be supervised by the vendor. After the fourth year,the entire Model of Implementation will either be handled by the F&S Department or be outsourced.

It was also agreed upon that a system administrator will be appointed for the project,who will coordinate with the vendor.

To avoid the misuse of smart cards by outsiders,it was deliberated that in addition to biometric features,provision of an iris capture device will also be incorporated in the RFP.

Niwas also directed the consultant of the project to submit the RFP within a week.

The smart card scheme aims at streamlining the functioning of the F&S department by ensuring improvised and efficient service delivery.

POS (point of sale) terminals are likely to be set up in all fair price shops of the city and the identity of the smart card holder would be established by means of his biometric impression upon insertion of the card in the terminal.

The smart card,with 64 Kb memory,will hold biometric data of all family members of the card holder. The beneficiary would also be able to check the ration allocation made along with the remaining balance in his account.

A unique feature of the Chandigarh Smart Card Model is the ability of the system to work in online and offline modes and automatic synchronisation of the data stored in the POS terminal (transaction data,list of blacklisted card holders) with the central database.

The implementation of smart card-based ration cards across the UT will be undertaken in a phased manner. Phase I of the project will cover approximately 56,000 families who use ration cards to take supplies from fair price shops and kerosene depots. In the second phase,over two lakh card holders will be provided with the smart card.