No supplies, no food, but ration shops to go cashless in Kerala

In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to go cashless, Kerala government has decided to equip its rations shops with micro ATM's. The electronic point of sale (ePOS) facility will be installed soon at all the 14, 500 ration retail shops in the state. 
 

The move also aims to ensure fill-fledged and effective implementation of National Food Security Act (NFSA). The Centre had issued a direction to State Governments to introduce micro ATM facility backed with Aadhaar based biometric authentication in all fair price shops that are part of Public Distribution System (PDS) to ensure that subsidised ration reaches genuine beneficiary. 
 

Recently,  Union Government had cut short the ration allocation to Kerala as the state failed to implement NFSA in a time bound manner. Centre decided to discontinue the supply of food grains to families Above Poverty Line (APL). The state Government is yet to identify genuine beneficiaries. 
 

With the implementation of ePOS, beneficiaries will be able to make purchases at fair price shops by swiping their debit cards. The ePOS will also act as micro ATMs facilitating withdrawal of money from accounts. The retailers will get some amount as commission for each purchase made using this facility. State Bank of India is authorised to implement ePOS outlets. 
 

The government will have to computerise entire ration retail shops in the state before rolling out this system while internet connectivity poses a big challenge in the rural areas for equipping ration retail shops with ePOS. State IT Mission is asked to conduct a connectivity survey to ensure uninterrupted connectivity for the successful implementation of the project. 
 

• ration shops
• electronic point of sale
• ePOS
• ATM
• micro ATM
• Narendra Modi
• cashless
• National Food Security Act