Digitised ration cards from Jan

The state government’s initiative to keep a check on malpractices in the fair price shop operations, through smart cards or digitised cards, will see Pune as the first city in the state rolling out this initiative in January. The digital card which will store information about the owner for procuring essential commodities which will be replicated in the entire state in a three year period.

With it being a private-public partnership with Spanco Telesystems, the company is collating information in the district and is all set to complete the procedure in a month’s time.

Vice president of Spanco Telesystems, Ravi Bhatnagar, said that the smart card will have thumb impression of the head of the household and a bar code which will have details of the family members and the quantity they can be issued. The person has to produce the existing ration card at the time of issuing smart card, he added.

With each card having a separate bar code, it will enable the government to keep the record of each card holder updated.