Fraud Vs Food for all; will POS wipe it off?

HYDERABAD, AP: The United Nations World Food Programme (UN WFP) is going to expand a critical food distribution program with the objective of eliminating fraud and ensuring that all qualified citizens receive their proper share of assistance. 4G Identity Solutions Pvt. Ltd. has won this contract.

The contract calls for expanding the WFP's Public Distribution System (PDS) project in the state of Orissa, India by completing the enrollment of the entire population of the Rayagada district and providing an end-to-end solution for Point of Sale distribution that works effectively in remote areas. Whereas the earlier project has resulted in the elimination of duplicate and bogus identities, the current project will now ensure that the cardholders are empowered to exercise their full rights at the Fair Price Shops (FPS) through better systems, infrastructure and data transparency.

The UN WFP undertook the PDS project on behalf of the Government of Orissa to reissue ration cards and institute new processes to better manage and monitor the distribution of food grains. The intent was to use the new technology and processes to eliminate fraud, so that aid gets to as many eligible recipients as possible. The first phase of the project, which was also implemented by 4G ID, was the multi-biometric solution for approximately one million citizens in the Rayagada district. The solution captured three biometrics - a face picture, two irises and ten fingerprints, and demographic details of citizen. In addition, 4G ID provided a specialized de-duplication solution to eliminate fraud.

The current project has two objectives. First, 4G ID will setup and run biometric enrollment stations to enroll citizens in order to create a unique ID for all eligible beneficiaries in Rayagada. The second objective is to design, test and deploy an end-to-end biometric Point of Sale solution, robust enough to handle food distribution in hundreds of rural locations. Such a system will ensure that the commodities are issued to beneficiaries only when one of the family member's credentials are verified at the assigned Fair Price Shop. 4G ID is tasked with providing a number of technologies (biometric, barcode, smart card and wireless technologies) in the POS solution. In addition 4G ID will provide a centralized management information system (MIS) to track and monitor the PDS system.

Dr. Sreeni Tripuraneni, the CEO of 4G ID, said "We are happy that this challenging project will not only plug significant leakages in the current public distribution system but also provide an efficient and effective delivery mechanism for the government to provide many more welfare schemes. This project will result in substantial savings for the PDS Programme making it possible for the government to expand the food subsidy scheme to excluded but eligible beneficiaries."