The Civil Supplies Department has embarked on a verification process of all beneficiaries who figure in the priority household (PHH) cards, following the advice of the Centre.
Thumb impressions of all the beneficiaries in every PHH card will have to be captured. The process will be carried out in the next four to five months to cover all the beneficiaries gradually, says a senior government official. There are 95.83 lakh PHH cards in the State, with around 3 crore beneficiaries enumerated in them.
The Centre’s instruction has come in the wake of its decision in December last to provide free grain to all National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries across the country for one year – all those covered under the PHH and Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) cards.
Comparing the exercise with the submission of life certificates by pensioners, the official says the broad purpose is to ascertain the presence of the beneficiaries. In many cases, those mentioned in PHH cards lived abroad with no apparent inclination to return home and use the cards.
“There is no need for all the beneficiaries of a PHH card to visit fair price shops in one go and provide thumb impressions. There is no such compulsion. One after the other, they can go to the shops every month and get covered over a period of four or five months,” the official explains. In regards to senior citizens whose thumb impressions are not being deciphered, letters from taluk supply officers will do. At present, the thumb impressions of approximately 40% of the beneficiaries are available with the authorities. This means that the department has to cover nearly 1.8 crore more beneficiaries.
Meanwhile, the department is taking steps to scale up the application of intelligent retinal imaging system (IRIS) technology all over the State for supplying commodities.
In October last, the IRIS authentication was implemented on a pilot basis in two fair price shops – one in urban (Chennai) and another in rural (Ariyalur). One of the reasons behind the IRIS project is to help senior citizens/other persons, who may not be able to successfully complete the fingerprint-based Aadhaar authentication due to a change of fingerprints.
The department has identified the agency for the implementation of the project, which will be an “end-to-end computerIsation” scheme. A work order will be issued shortly, the official says, adding that the period of implementation will be six to nine months.
