At a fair price shop in Jasola village. (Express photo)
For two days in a row, Asha (45) has returned home to her family of four in Madanpur Khadar without the promised 4 kg rice and 16 kg wheat.
The Aadhaar Card-based electronic Point of Sale (e-PoS) device — set up in 2,254 Fair Price Shops from January 1 — does not recognise her thumb print. “I work as a domestic help, and haven’t gone to work for two days because I have waiting to get ration. Not only have I lost pay, I also have no food at home. Yesterday, the machine didn’t work at all, and today, it’s neither recognising my thumb print nor my daughter’s,” she said.
At FPS, wheat is sold for Rs 2/kg, and rice for Rs 3/kg. The same amount of wheat costs Rs 22 at other shops.
The e-PoS device comes equipped with two SIM cards, and the fingerprints authenticate the card-holders. When the machine refuses to authenticate the card-holder, messages in red pop up — from “Framing request failed” to “Device ID is not mapped with this shop”.
At a FPS in Jasola village, the machine works only when Sant Ram (52) turns on his phone hotspot. “Even then, the network breaks every few minutes. Manually, we sell ration to 300-400 people in a day. But today, with the machine, we’ve sold to only 100-150 people,” he said.
Nagina, 55, who works as a domestic help in Jasola, said, “I’ve been cleaning utensils for decades… my finger tips don’t have the lines, so the machine isn’t recognising me.”
According to Food Supplies Minister, Imran Husain, “We’ve made it clear that no one will be denied ration. If the biometric machine does not work, entries are to be made in register… For people whose biometric credentials are not being recognised, there is a system where they can file an affidavit and get ration through other family members. Any complaint of ration not being distributed will be taken seriously. We have also issued a helpline number — 1967 — where the complaints can be reported.”
Linking distribution of ration with Aadhaar cards was first started in 90 shops as a pilot project in December. Raju Gupta’s shop in the JJ Colony in Madanpur Khadar is one of them. He said, “We’ve been facing this problem from the start. We got the machine replaced yesterday, but even the new one is not working. We can’t give ration manually…we’ve written orders that state we’ve to ask people to come back on January 10.”
A circular by Food Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department, dated December 28, 2017, states that “in case authentication is not materialised through the e-PoS, FPS owner would be permitted to manually distribute SFA up to maximum of 8% of the total cards attached to the shop… in case of any exigency of offline sale beyond 8%, a special officer shall be deployed at the shop.”
Another circular, dated December 30, 2017, from Food and Supplies Office, Circle-04, Adarsh Nagar, states that “in case authentication is not materialised/successful… the FPS holder should ask the card holder to come after January 10, 2018 so that satisfactory verification may be done”.
Saurav Gupta, secretary, Delhi Sarkari Ration Dealer Sangh, said in the last two days, he has received many calls from dealers complaining about confusion over the two circulars. “They have launched the devices without any preparation, servers are down, some machines don’t recognise biometrics… and from shops in Kalkaji and Aya Nagar, I have received complaints about how the SIMs are not activated.”
For all the latest Delhi News, download Indian Express App
