PANAJI: The state civil supplies department has completed a large part of the digitization of the state ration card database as part of the process of providing smart ration cards to ration card holders in the state. Department officials said data of over 1.6 lakh cards has been digitised so far and the rest will be completed soon. The entire process is expected to be completed in two months. Officials said the department is also in the process of getting the requisite hardware infrastructure in place for networking the state PDS system. The networking is expected to be done by the Info Tech Corporation of Goa, and the supply chain software testing was presently going on. The software has been designed by National Informatics Centre (NIC). The move to provide smart ration cards to card holders is part of a central government project to plug leakages in the public distribution system and other malpractice. Goa electronics limited (GEL) is to issue the digital ration cards once the digitization of the data is complete. The entire project is expected to be completed by March 2014, and involves computerization and e-networking of the fair price shops as well as installation of point-of-sale systems. |