Vigilance wing probe into ration theft

Thiruvananthapuram: The Vigilance wing of the civil supplies department has initiated a probe into the allegation that ration articles are being diverted to the black market from ration shops by manipulating the data of the Electronic Point of Sale (E-PoS) machines.

It is alleged  that some ration shop owners  generate one-time password (OTP) in the name of ration card holders using their own mobile phones and siphon off  ration articles.

The Vigilance wing has asked the officials of the civil supplies department to select one ration shop in each district at  random and conduct a survey of the households to ascertain whether house owners have brought PDS articles through ration shops.

Most of the fictional transactions of subsidised rice, wheat, flour and kerosene in ration shops occurred at the end of the month. A bulk of these PDS commodities ended in the open market, sources said.

It is said that even after the installation of E-PoS machines, almost 90 percent of the articles have been distributed through ration shops. The calculation was  that only 60 percent of the beneficiaries would be using the public distribution system (PDS) as the chances of manipulation was very less with the implementation of E-PoS machines. This calculation was based on the assessment that 40 percent beneficiaries were not depending on PDS.

The OTP  provision is used to give ration through the E-PoS system in case the beneficiaries do not utilise Aadhaar-based biometric authentication mechanism. In such cases, an OTP is sent on the mobile number of the beneficiary. Shop owners would use their mobile phones or mobile phones in their access to register  OTP in the name of beneficiaries who have not  availed of the PDS  that month , sources said.

There is also misuse of the provision that ration articles can be distributed to beneficiaries if they send  representatives with authorisation letter. Some ration shop owners siphon of ration articles by producing fake authorisation letter, said sources.

Moreover, some ration shops were  distributing only half the number of articles that are eligible for beneficiaries. This is  because E-PoS machines are not linked to weighing machines here as in some other states, sources said.