Technical glitch mars ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ scheme again

Coimbatore: After launching the One Nation, One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme for the fourth time in the district on Saturday, the Tamil Nadu public distribution system (TNPDS) had to suspend it within a few hours and resume the old distribution system due to server problems.
Under the scheme, ration products are handed over only to those family members, whose names are mentioned in the ration card after verifying their fingerprints.Cardholders can obtain their share of ration products from any part of the country.
The scheme was implemented on a pilot basis at 135 ration shops in the Coimbatore south taluk on October 1. Two weeks later, TNPDS decided to extend it to all the 1,419 ration shops in the district. But within a few days, it had to stop it due to server latency.
The state government launched the scheme in the district again on December 15 after executing it in 16 districts on a trial basis. To avoid crowding in front of the ration shops to obtain the state government’s Pongal gift hampers, the scheme was stopped again and the hampers were distributed by swiping ration card in PoS machines.
The scheme was reintroduced in the district earlier this week, but was stopped three days ago after receiving numerous complaints from the public.
“After updating the software, the state government decided to implement the scheme on pilot basis. It was implemented in the district on Saturday. But system performance degraded within an hour and it took more than half-an-hour to cater to a beneficiary. We received complaints from across the district,” an official from the office of district supply officer said. “The collector discussed the issue with the commissioner of civil supplies and consumer protection department and decided to suspend the biometric system for two days. The system will be resumed on Monday. Meanwhile, ration products will be distributed using the old system.”
G Rajendran, president of the Tamil Nadu Ration Shop Employees’ Union, urged the state government not to implement the scheme till the end of the month. “We were distributing Pongal gift hampers till January 13. Only if we manage to distribute the products to at least 200 people a day per shop, would we be able to complete this month’s quota,” he said. “The government should fix the bugs and improve server speed before reimplementing it again as it has been causing huge inconvenience to the public and workers.”