‘Point of Sales’ machines installed at ration shops in Dindigul

Paperless sales of PDS goods to commence on July 1

NEXT STEP:Collector T.N. Hariharan inspecting the ‘Point of Sales’ machine at a ration shop at Chettinaickenpatti near Dindigul on Tuesday.— PHOTO: G. Karthikeyan

With installation of ‘Point of Sales’ (POS) machines at all ration shops in the district, District Supply Office has taken steps not only to ensure transparency in sale of PDS goods but also to eradicate bogus cards.

Inaugurating the sale through the POS machine at a ration shop at Chettinaickanpatti near here on Tuesday, Collector T.N. Hariharan said that the POS machines were installed at all the 1,035 ration shops in the district.

Feeding ration card details, Aadhar numbers and mobile numbers of 6.26 lakh ration card holders was being done, he said.

Already, several ration shops had fed these details into the system and commenced sale. This work would be over at all shops by the month end, and paperless sales would commence on July 1.

To know more about the new system, the public could visit the official websitewww.tnpds.com, he said.

These machines would provide real time details of ration goods.

With this facility, the authorities would know the exact quantity of items sold at all ration shops. Bogus cards would be eliminated as the smart cards issued to ration card holders would have all biometric information.

District Supply Officer N. Johnson said, “When the card is swiped at a ration shop, the connected data base will get updated with inventory records. No bills will be given to buyers. But they would get SMS detailing the quantity of products they bought, sale prices and products to be purchased instantly.”

Salesmen would get information like distribution, stock position and goods in transportation.

Once a load was taken out of the godown, details of dispatch would be sent to the salesman concerned immediately.

‘A’ register and supply register were uploaded in the machines.

The salesmen’s workload would come down considerably.

Separate user name and password were given to each salesman.

So, only the concerned salesman could handle a particular machine. These POS machines were hooked on to servers in TNCSC godowns and computers in the Collector’s office for instant and effective monitoring, he added.