Now, Aadhaar checking via retina scanning from April 15 for delivery of grains at ration shops

kolkata: The state Food and Supplies department will introduce Aadhaar authentication through retina scanning of the beneficiaries for delivery of food grains in the ration shops across the state from April 15. The pilot project started, involving five fair price shops in each district, from March 1.

“We are presently offering training to the dealers for handling this technology and deploying soon after completion of the training. In districts like Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri, Bankura, Burdwan (East and West), Hooghly, Purulia, Jhargram, Nadia and Birbhum the training has been over and so all the fair price shops in these districts will have facilities of retina scanning from April 1. If things go as per plan, then by ‘Poila Baisakh’, all 21000 odd fair price shops will have this facility in place,” a senior official of state Food and Supplies department said.

The official added that retina scanning for Aadhaar authentication will be an alternative to the existing system of using finger print for verification. There have been instances when the finger print verification do not work and result in delay in delivery of service to the beneficiaries. The retina scanning system will be an alternative and will surely benefit the customers, helping in quick delivery.

“We will not have to bear any extra expenditure for installing this facility. We had signed a contract with the service provider that has been responsible for putting up the E pos system in place about putting up infrastructure of the retina scanning as an additional part of the existing e pos mechanism,”state Food and Supplies minister Rathin Ghosh said.

The e-pos machine transactions have eliminated chances of unfair practices associated with the rationing system and has brought in transparency in the distribution process.

The move has ensured that genuine beneficiaries get their allocated share of food grains.