Food and Civil Supplies Minister Imran Hussain has asked the Centre to consider coupling the electronic Point of Sale-enabled (ePoS) public distribution system with doorstep delivery, and implement it across the country.
He also complained against the Delhi Food Commissioner and sought his transfer.
‘Serious irregularities’
Mr. Hussain said a trial run of the ePoS system during January-March 2018 had exposed several “serious irregularities and shortcomings” such as ration on fake cards, biometric authentication failure and multiple OTPs generated for fraudulent pilferage of ration.
In a letter to Union Minister of Consumer Affairs Ram Vilas Paswan on Monday, Mr. Hussain wrote: “May I, therefore, request you to consider implementing ePoS-enabled doorstep delivery of ration throughout India.”
Mr. Hussain said that technology-led reforms were the way forward but not rectifying the “loopholes” that have been noticed in the course of implementation of the ePoS system would defeat the efforts at checking pilferage in the public distribution system.
Meanwhile, seeking the transfer of the Food Commissioner, the Minister alleged that the Delhi government had suspended ePoS through its order on February 20, 2018, in view of "”deficiencies in it, but the officer did not stop ration distribution through it”.
He also claimed that doorstep delivery of ration, which was approved by the Delhi government, was not implemented by the official.
Doorstep delivery
“The Cabinet had decided to implement doorstep delivery of ration system. However, despite the Cabinet decision and a number of directions, the Food and Civil Supplies Department Commissioner has deliberately not taken any steps to implement it,” Mr. Hussain said.
He also urged the Union Minister to ask Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal to issue direction to ensure expeditious investigation of cases involving corrupt practices in the public distribution system.