Minister for Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs, Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali today called upon Chief Minister of Gujarat, Vijay Rupani and Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Jayesh Radadiya at Gandhi Nagar, Gujarat to discuss smart electronic public distribution system in the state.

Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali arrived in Gujarat to have first hand appraisal of the   smart electronic distribution system in Gujarat. He held deliberations with Chief Minister and Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs of Gujarat, to discuss successful cashless system in Gujarat and smart electronic public distribution system in the state. He also visited various fair price shops and inspected the working of automated FPS.

Chowdhary Zulfkar was apprised that Gujarat has become the first state in the country for establishing cashless system in its public distribution system (PDS) of food grains. He was briefed on the efforts and requirements for installing Aadhaar enabled payment system in 17,250 fair price shops (FPS).

          He was also briefed about “Smart PDS” in which the state used modern ‘state of the art’ technology to eliminate ghost beneficiaries and to have more accurate information on RC besides to increase efficiency and effectiveness of PDS in the State. He was given information about Smart Ration Card, Smart License to FPS, Smart Identity Card to Civil Supplies Employees. They told him that Gujarat’s PDS is a model in electronic authentication of delivery and payments at the fair price shop which has been acknowledged by United Nations World Food Programme.

Meanwhile during an interaction with the Chief Minister and Food Minister of Gujarat, Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali briefed them that J&K State is also heading towards a transparent system under the leadership of  Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti.He said  that major steps have been initiated   to streamline   the working of the department and informed that state is  also heading towards  cashless transactions besides installing Point of Sale Machines  to make the system more transparent.

          On the sideline of the meeting on ePDS, Zulfkar took up the matter of issue of students from J&K studying in various parts of the country.

He appealed Chief Minister of Gujarat to ensure proper safety and security of J&K students studying in Gujarat. The Chief Minister assured that they will take every step for safety and security of the students.

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