Real-time tabs on trucks helped in preventing theft of PDS rice

A tech initiative has saved Rs 19,000 crore for civil supplies department in Telangana. A nexus that existed between rice millers, fair price shop dealers and also government staff, to an extent, was busted and pilferage of food grains curtailed.

Civil Supplies Commissioner C.V.Anand monitors godowns and transport vehicles

The way civil supplies department went about busting the racket, and, in the process, shattering a myth that nothing could be done to change to system that allowed for pilferage of rice, is interesting. TOI checked out the mechanism put in place by CV Anand, commissioner of civil supplies and ex-officio principal secretary, civil supplies department. The IPS officer, who had previously serviced as Cyberabad police commissioner, used his exposure to technology to introduce it even in the civil supplies department.

“The revolution that has been brought about to check pilferage of food grains is mainly due to the technology that makes it possible,” Anand said. In the civil supplies bhavan at Somajiguda, a huge screen gives out real-time specific detail about movement of stocks. Every identified route on which the trucks are transporting food grains has been geo-fenced. That is to say if a truck were to move on any other road and even stopped, the buzzer in the civil supplies bhavan will ring, prompting the monitoring personnel to call up the driver.In the earlier system when no tabs were kept on vehicles, it gave enough scope for pilferage of food grains. Similarly, cameras have been fixed at all godowns. Live CCTV footage is monitored so that there no pilferage. Anand also demonstrated the mechanism at fair price shops that prevents any pilferage. A real-time stock availability and sale is monitored. Beneficiaries also get the right quantity as technology connects both the weighing scales and the e-pos machine handled by the FPS dealer.

The e-pos machine gets activated only with the thumb impression of the FPS dealer and the beneficiary. Technology also exposed the fact that rice millers had not returned the rice that had been handed over to them for milling. Another racket of keeping the gunny bags was also busted. “The best thing that has happened is that farmers get their minimum support price within just a couple of days and directly into their bank,” Anand said.