Fair price shops under the public distribution system may be ensuring subsidised foodgrain to lakhs of people, but they are now forced to cough up thousands of rupees to a cellphone company for their Internet usage.
The shop owners, who installed Vodafone’s USB dongle for operating electronic weighing-cum-point of sale machines, have received whopping bills, some as high Rs. 60,000 a month.
Over 1,200 PDS shops in Chikmagalur and Tumkur districts, which was part of the pilot project, now have to pay those bills even though the government has fixed only Rs. 28.09 a month as their allowance for Internet usage.
To usher in transparency in the PDS, the government installed electronic weighing-cum-point of sale machines in shops in the two districts in 2012. The government roped in Vodafone India to capture data for monitoring daily transactions and after every transaction, the machine sends details to the central server in the department located in Bangalore.
Unfortunately, Internet bills have skyrocketed in all the 1094 fair price shops in Tumkur and 144 shops in Chikmagalur.
Monthly bills of some shops crossed Rs. 65,000 and bills of majority of them crossed Rs. 2,000, officials of the Food and Civil Supplies Department told The Hindu .
A private firm installed the electronic weighing-cum-point of sale machines and is supervising them. “We don’t have control over Internet usage. Employees of agency, which established machines, locked them. Our duty is to switch on and off the computer during the transaction,” said a PDS owner in Tumkur, whose monthly bills crossed Rs. 11,000. “How can I pay this huge bill?” he asked in despair.
Reacting to the unusually high bills, Vodafone India in its statement said, “The amount billed is as per actual usage. We have provided all necessary details to the customer in accordance with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) guidelines. We continue to engage with the customer to address the concerns raised amicably.”
Left with no other alternative, the department has sent a notice on the alleged misuse of Internet by PDS owners and instructed them to pay the bills.
Meanwhile, the department convened a meeting with Vodafone representatives and sought details of Internet usage. Initially, Vodafone refused to give details citing TRAI regulations. But it later promised to provide details, the officials said.
Ration shop owners in Tumkur have asked the department to order a probe into the disproportionate Internet usage to punish culprits indulged in hacking the net.
Unable to pay the “exorbitant” Vodafone bills, majority of the shop owners have now installed parallel Internet cards from another operator, said a senior official. Officers in the department added that they found no problems in Belgaum, Gulbarga, Mysore and Dharwad, where the machines were installed.
