The pilot project of the Aadhaar-based Public Distribution System (PDS) in East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh is yielding good results, with genuine beneficiaries getting the commodities properly. The district officials also noticed 30 per cent of savings in the ration in urban areas and close to 20 per cent in the rural areas in a month under the project.

For the first time in the country, this kind of project was launched in East Godavari district in the north coastal belt of Andhra Pradesh in September.

Ration had been distributed to the beneficiaries, based on the data registered for ‘Aadhaar’.

After tallying the ration cards data with that of the Aadhaar, the pilot project was launched in 47 select fair price shops spread across the district.

The new system prompts the beneficiaries to give their fingerprints in electronic mode, which would be traced instantly with that of the ‘Aadhaar’ data. It helped distribution of the commodities only to the genuine beneficiaries.

Many neighbouring States are evincing interest in the pilot project and sending their teams to the district for study as the project not only ensures distribution of commodities to the genuine beneficiaries but also makes monitoring of the stock more easy with the fair price shops delivering all the commodities at one go and the customers needn’t to frequent the fair price shop time and again.