Online Depot System for Transparent and Leak Proof PDS

Online System to automate all the operations of Food Corporation of India (FCI) depots was launched by Ram Vilas Paswan, Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.

"Online Depot" project is an important milestone in the overall modernisation of FCI and improvement of Food Supply Chain. It is an important project under Digital India initiative of Government.

Benefits of online depot system:

Capturing data online on a real time basis, the system will bring total transparency in the working of FCI. It would help in better monitoring and supervision to reduce leakages and losses.

The system will provide various types of data regarding stock position, movement, quality and quantity on line. It will generate SMS alerts to depot officials, area manager and other decision making authorities.

All the data will be available on dashboard also for top management to monitor centrally and help in automatic reconciliation and generating of MIS reports about food grain management.

Ram Vilas Pawan at the launch said:

Launching the "Online Depot System" Ram Vilas Paswan said that sustain efforts by the Government have resulted in significant reforms in PDS. He said bringing depots online is a historic step towards improving functioning of FCI.

He further added that by July this year operations of all the FCI depots will be online and by March, 2017 remaining Depots which include CWC, SWC and hired one will also be online.

Mr. Paswan also said his Ministry is in touch with the State Governments also to bring operations of their procurement agencies and distribution network online so that from procurement to delivery of food grains to the fair price shop become online.

Highlighting recent initiatives to make the food grain management more efficient, Mr. Paswan said that almost 100% cards have been digitised and about 80,000 Fair Price Shop (FPS) have been provided with bio-metric "Point of Sale Device" for distributing subsidised food grains.

Such devices will be installed at 3 lakh FPS by March 2017 and by March 2019 all the ration shops in the country will have these devices to make Public Distribution System totally leak proof.

He said 45% ration cards have been seeded with Aadhar cards and in next 2 years remaining cards will also be seeded with the Aadhars wherever available.

Mr. Paswan announced that all the labours working in FCI, including contact labours, will be given free uniform and masks. He said welfare of workers and labours is very high priority for his Government.

FCI is engaged in procurement and storage of more than 600 LMT of wheat and rice and movement of 450 LMT of food grains across the country through almost 1900 Godowns.

Highlights of the Online Depot System:

1. The system will automate and streamline all the activities during the stock inflow/outflow by road.
2. The system will provide an efficient way to monitor and track the movement of items by rail.
3. Godown operation such as dumping management, stack management, spillage management, stack suggestion, storage loss calculation etc. will be automated. Stock position or occupancy of the shed will also be available on real time basis.
4. The application will integrate with the weighbridge installed within the depot.
5. The system will track chemical spraying, fumigation and procurement quality check.
6. The system will keep track of all the millers or Agency that are associated with the depots. Miller or Agency will be able to log in into the system and enter required details.
7. The system will provide a tracking of gunny, chemical and equipment, using technologies like RFID.
8. System will provide Dash board for managerial staff along with basic MIS reports such as daily stock receipt, daily stock issue, quality related reports etc.
9. Facilitate the depot management for FCI, help in speeding up operations, Free up manpower from laborious data collation and report preparation. Thus, saving operational costs by proper planning and optimising the administrative.
10. Integrated view of end to end processes, use of workflow, notification and alerts and seamless connection between depots and district or regional offices of FCI.
11. Capture data at source and in real time through Handheld Devices, reduce redundancy.
    SMS alerts will help field staff to take timely action.
12. Will help save costs and prevent leakages.