The Department of Food and Public Distribution has computerised the entire distribution process covering all 20.4 crore household ration cards, covering 80.6 crore beneficiaries, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution said on Wednesday.

These ration cards have been digitised along with 99.8 per cent of ration cards and 98.7% individual beneficiaries being Aadhaar-seeded, it added.

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Notably, the foodgrain distribution is operationalised through 5.33 lakh e-PoS devices, covering nearly all Fair Price shops in the country.

These e-PoS devices enable Aadhar authentication of beneficiaries during the distribution process enabling the principle of rightful targeting.

“Today Aadhaar authentication is used for distributing approximately 98 per cent of total foodgrains, reducing leakages to ineligible beneficiaries and mitigating any risk of pilferage,” the Consumer Affairs Ministry said.

64% PDS beneficiaries completed eKYC:

It further said that as of today, 64 per cent of all PDS beneficiaries have completed their eKYC and the process is in full swing to complete eKYC for the remaining.

For the convenience of beneficiaries, the department has facilitated eKYC of beneficiaries at any Fair Price Shop (ration shop) across the country.

Digitalisation and Aadhar seeding have led to de-duplication of ration cards and approximately 5.8 Crore ration cards have been removed from PDS system, ensuring that only eligible persons are included in PMGKAY/NFSA.

Further on the supply side, the ministry said that the Supply Chain Management System has been adopted and integrated for end-to-end operations and services at all levels of Food Corporation of India (FCI) organisation, Development of Central Food Procurement Portal (CFPP) for streamlined MSP operations, implementation of Warehouse Inventory Network and Governing System (WINGS) application to automate tagging of mills with depots, as well as allocation of stack space in FCI, Vehicle Location Tracking System (VLTS) innovative with integration with Railways for online real time tracking of food consignment and WDRA registration of all FCI Godowns.