Distribution of 12 kg rice each to the members of the 87.59 lakh white ration card holders, free of cost, in the State is faced with technical glitches.
The servers that operate the e-POS machines were down on Friday resulting in obstructions to verification of the cardholders credentials and thereby, delaying the rice distribution process. Cardholders who formed long queues in front of the fair price shops were made to wait for hours together to pick up their quota of assured rice.
According to reports reaching here, people in their hurry to avail of the benefit ignored the safe distancing norms in several places as long queue lines were formed right from the early hours. The impatient consumers had arguments with the dealers and with officials monitoring the distribution process in some places.
According to Civil Supplies Department officials, the servers were equipped to handle around 3 lakh transactions daily. But the rush was so huge since April 1 when the distribution process started that the servers had to put up with more than 7 lakh transactions daily over the past two days. “Over 14 lakh cardholders availed of the benefit in the past two days resulting in burden on the servers. Efforts are on to enhance the capacity of the servers so that consumers are not put to any inconvenience,” an official told The Hindu .
Civil Supplies Corporation chairman M. Srinivas Reddy said efforts were underway to resolve the impasse in consultation with the Information Technology department. There were no problems in the rural areas, but the server side difficulties were encountered in the urban areas where the rush was more.
The department had successfully distributed 12 kg rice and ₹ 500 cash to close to 3.4 lakh migrant labour in the past two days in line with the instructions given by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. The supply of ration would continue for 12 hours daily — from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. — and there was no truth in the reports that April 15 had been fixed as cut-off date for supply of rice to eligible beneficiaries.
There was also no truth in the reports that ₹ 1,500 cash assured to each of the cardholders’ families would be paid only on availing the 12 kg quota of rice. Distribution of the assured cash would commence in a couple of days.
