At least 2K fair-price shops that need rationalisation identified

Kolkata: The state Food and Supplies department has identified around 2,000 fair-price shops across the state that need rationalisation.

The exercise of rationalisation of the shops started in September 2022, intending to ease the hardship faced by a section of ration dealers in reaching out to the huge volume of beneficiaries under their jurisdiction and at the same time prevent crowding

at shops.

The process of issuing new licenses in this regard has also begun with 200 new licenses being already issued.

“The standard maintained by the department is to have 4,000 to 5,000 customers for each fair-price shop. However, it was found that in some cases, the number was 3,000 while in some other cases, it was over 12,000. So, it was essential to remove this disparity and maintain a standard. The move will not only benefit the ration dealers but the customers too,” a senior official of the state Food and Supplies department said.

The official added that the process of issuing new licenses after identification goes through a number of processes and will take time. However, the ball has been set rolling and 200 licenses have already been issued.

Presently there are nearly 21,000 ration dealers across the state that cater to 9.20 crore customers.

In the case of issuing new licenses, the department is sticking to 3,000 customers per shop.

The department has started Aadhaar authentication through retina scanning of the beneficiaries for delivery of food grains from the ration shops across the state.

The piloting is being done in five fair price shops in each district from March 1. The dealers have also been trained for handling the same.