CIVIL SUPPLIES COMMISSIONER LAUNCHES EPOS DEVICE AT DIVITIPALLI

Civil Supplies Commissioner C V Anand inaugurating an e-PoS FP shop in Divitipalli village in Mahbubnagar district on Friday

Commissioner of Civil Supplies C.V.Anand has informed that Electronic Point Of Sale (EPOS) system is being implemented State-wide in phases to check irregularities/diversions of essential commodities under PDS as per the policy guidelines of Central and State Governments to convert FP Shops as centre points of cashless transactions.

EPOS system will be implemented in all the 15,606 FP shops in the state in phases, i.e., 5,242 FP shops in 10 districts in the first phase, 4,817 FP shops in 11 districts in the second phase and 5,507 FP shops in nine districts in the third phase.

To start with, the said system is being implemented in 40 FP shops on experimental basis in Mahbubnagar district i.e. 6 FP shops in Balanagar mandal, 20 FP shops in Jadcherla mandal & 14 FP Shops in Mahbubnagar mandal.

The Commissioner of Civil Supplies has formally inaugurated the EPOS device in the FP Shop at Divitipalli, Mahbubnagar district, on Friday.

As per the policy guidelines of Central Government to encourage cashless transactions due to cancellation of big currency notes, Telangana State Civil Supplies Corporation made major innovative changes in EPOS devices. EPOS devices positioned in FP Shops of Hyderabad district are useful only to release PDS stocks through finger printers.

Now major changes are made in EPOS devices in the backdrop of cashless transactions and added Iris, Scanner, Weighing scales, Swiping Machine, Aadhaar-enabled Payments System, audio voice and also providing receipt of payments of electricity bills, water bills, etc. Software is developed to take rationed stocks through bank account of the cardholders.

In line with the directions of Central government to utilise FP shops for banking transactions also, micro ATMs are also being installed, with the result the FP Shops dealers will act as business correspondent in addition to release of PDS commodities.

Due to corrosion of fingerprints in some cases, some operational problems have arisen in biometric system. To overcome this, now iris and voice over system are being in EPOS devices keeping in view the people living in rural areas.

Oasis Cybernet Private Limited, Chennai, was identified as system integrator through tender system for supply and maintenance of EPOS devices. Commissioner of Civil Supplies informed that it is decided to install EPOS devices in all 15,606 FP shops in the State in 3 phases and complete the entire process by end of June. To start with, EPOS devices will be installed in 40 FP Shops in Mahbubnagar district as an experimental basis and after seeing the performance, the same will the extended to all the remaining districts.

After installation Aadhaar enabled EPOS devices, digital payments will be made in 13,002 rural FP shops and 4,157 urban FP shops. The original RFP was based on Linux system but the same was modified to Android based operating system software.

In addition to EPOS device, Iris scanner, electronic weighing machines and voice player are provided which support Aadhaar enabled Payment System (AePS) transactions. On these EPOS machines, cashless transactions are also enabled as per the recent directions of the Government of India on demonetisation. EPOS system is in force w.e.f. March 2016 in GHMC limits Commissioner of Civil Supplies also informed that after installation of EPOS devices there is a saving of 75,353 MTs of rice worth Rs 269 crore to the government.