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| Data collection for the digitisation process under way in IA Block and BJ Block. (Saradindu Chaudhury) | |
The humble public distribution shop is getting ready for a new-age makeover. Some day in future, when you pick up your weekly quota of salt, sugar, soap or rice, your rationwallah will scan your smart card and the bar codes on the packets of the products you have chosen; the data will appear on the screen of his hand-held tablet and he will give you a printed receipt, much like in any shopping mall. Your purchase will get recorded on the central server of the government’s food and supplies department.
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The first phase of this transformation has taken off with the digitisation of ration cards. The process which started earlier this month has been sporadically underway near the public distribution system outlets.
In a special arrangement for Salt Lake, data entry for digitisation of ration cards would take place simultaneously in all 16 fair price shops located under Bidhannagar Municipality on February 21, 22 and 23. “Data entry work would be carried out from 9am to 2pm and again from 4pm to 7pm on these days,” said Jyotipriyo Mallick, the state food and supplies minister who stays in BC Block. The process will continue afterwards as well but will follow a different schedule in each shop.
Towards transparency
Ration cards are being digitised to maintain transparency. “We have been able to seize 80.38 lakh fake ration cards. There are one crore more cards out there that need to be seized. We are following the data available in the National Population Register and the census of 2011. This is helping us get a clear picture of the consumer base,” said Mallick.
The minister said there are no takers for as much as 72 per cent of the subsided food grains sent to ration shops in Salt Lake. “Only 28 per cent of the food grains we supply are purchased by cardholders. A small portion of these purchases is consumed by the domestic helps of the card holders. The rest is sold off by ration shop owners at market rates,” said Mallick.
The project cost has been pegged at Rs 112 crore. “The data collection would continue now so that no one gets left out,” said Mallick.
The digital smart card would be smaller than the current ration card. It would be issued for the entire family and not in names of individual members. “Every card would have a unique identification number. Cardholders of one ration shop can avail of products from another shop anywhere in Bengal. We can easily access the data on the cardholder’s purchase and the shop from where he did the buying,” said Mallick.
All existing ration cardholders are entitled to come under the digitisation project. Those who have lost their cards, do not have ration cards or the cards have lapsed should get new ration cards under the current system before applying for digitisation. For this, residents under Bidhannagar Municipality, wards 26 to 32 of South Dumdum Municipality and wards 11 to 30 of Rajarhat Gopalpur Municipality need to visit the Bidhannagar rationing office in Bikash Bhavan.
The next step
Once the ration cards have been digitised, the state government would provide computers to the fair price shop dealers. “We will also arrange for their training. The programme would be launched in phases,” said a senior official of the food department. No date has been set for the second phase of the programme.
News of computers to be installed in shops sent a frisson of excitement in some shop-owners and bewildered some others. Prahlad Chakraborty, the fair price shop dealer of BJ Market, is not computer literate. “My son uses a computer at home. I have no idea how it works but I am mentally prepared to learn,” smiled the elderly man. Chandan Jowardar of Falguni Abasan knows how to operate a computer but wondered how long it would survive in a ration shop. “There is so much dust here. We cannot wear the same dress twice without washing it,” he said.
Montu Gupta, the fair price shop dealer in IA Market, anticipates having to employ someone to run the computer. “It will reduce my profit margin. And what would happen if the computer is hacked or the server breaks down? Let the government issue the order first,” said Gupta.
Birth pangs
The digitisation process has had a bumpy ride so far in Salt Lake. There was little information at the ration shops on when and where the data collection would take place. A rumour that February 28 was the last date added to the confusion.
A scuffle had broken out in the BJ Market shop on February 8 when the lone data entry operator refused to entertain more then 20 people while around 50 had queued up.
Later, it was decided that 50 people would be served per day. “We arranged for chairs for those waiting in queue,” said Prahlad Chakraborty, owner of BJ Market fair price shop. The shop has a large customer base numbering about 12,000.
“Now things are running smoothly. My name is on the list of 50 so I took a day off from my office today,” said Narayan Trivedi, a resident of CJ Block on Tuesday.
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| Residents queue up in BJ Market for data entry last Friday. Picture by Saradindu Chaudhury |
Dhruba Ganguly of Falguni Abasan was coming to the ration shop in his housing complex every third day in hope of some news about when the digitisation of ration cards would start. “I lost count of the number of times I came. The dealers were in the dark. Because of this, I had to postpone my visit to my daughter’s house in Durgapur,” said Ganguly.
Till last week, Chandan Jowardar, the ration shop dealer of Falguni Abasan, had no answers for the 8,000 consumers of his shop, including Ganguly. “A person came for data entry just one day in the first week of February and nobody turned up since then,” is all he could say at that point.
Finally, on Tuesday morning, two data entry operators appeared. “We are requesting customers to fill up a form and submit it along with their old ration cards. We are giving back the card within a day or two,” said Jowardar on Tuesday.
The card holder has to write down his name on the form along with that of his father/husband, his sex, age, relation with the head of family and the ration card and folio numbers. Also needed are the address, the number of family members and the name of the head of the family.
In some ration shops, like in IA Market, the customers are interacting directly with the data entry operators, eliminating the need to fill up forms.
Bishamber Bose, general secretary of the All Bengal Ration Shop Owners’ Association, admitted to initial hiccups in the process of digitisation in all the ration shops under Bidhannagar Municipality. “Though it is running more smoothly now, senior citizens and office-goers are having trouble because of the long wait. Things would move faster if they get a form to fill up and submit instead of having to wait to get their data entered verbally. People will be better served if this form is made mandatory,” said Bose.
Abir Lal Das, who has been appointed by software firm Wipro to take care of the digitisation process at 33 fair price shops in Salt Lake, Kestopur, Baguiati and parts of Beleghata, is aware of the problems that customers were facing in some shops. “Some of the data entry operators quit leading to manpower shortage. We would provide smoother service now,” said the supervisor.
