Vellore PDS outlets provided with iris scanners

VELLORE: In a bid to overcome issues concerning thumb impressions of consumers failing to complete authorisaiton on Point of Sale machines used in fair price shops in Vellore, selected outlets were provided with iris scanners on Thursday.

Vellore district has a total of 699 fair price shops which till date were using the thumb impression mode to provide ration materials to consumers. However, those involved in physical labour and elderly consumers had difficulties in affixing their thumb impressions, which fail to register on the POS machine resulting in unnecessary arguments with the shop’s sales personnel.

The state government to resolve this issue said iris scanners could be used to check the bona fides of the consumers. Though the public had their fingers and iris scanned when they applied for Aadhaar cards some years ago, issues with thumb impressions resulted in officials promoting iris scanner.

On Thursday, a total of 70 iris scanners were issued to the ration outlets staff in Vellore. Of the 70, 15 machines each were issued to FPS in Vellore and Gudiyattam taluks and the remaining 40 to shops in Katpadi taluk, officials said.

“The machines were issued after the staff were given a days’ training on its use,” an official said and added that any member of a household whose name was included in the ration card could pick up rations from the outlets. “As the iris of all people was already scanned when they applied for Aadhaar cards we do not anticipate any issues in its use,” the official said.

The remaining ration shops would be issued iris scanners as and when the government provided them, officials noted.