Tamil Nadu planning electronic billing machines

In a bid to prevent malpractices and irregularities in ration shops, Tamil Nadu Government was planning to supply electronic billing machines to the Public Distribution System shops in a phased manner, official sources said today.

The machines would be introduced in kerosene bunks first and later extended to other PDS shops, they said.

The machine would give all the details including date, time, card number and commodity issued and will be connected to the website, making it easy to verify the sales on a daily basis. "Ration shop worker will have to give commodities to the card holders,if he enters it in the billing machine."

Once the machines were put in place, it would not be possible to pilfer the commodities by false billing against cards for which commodities were not issued.

"It is not possible to pilfer commodities through bills against the same card," they said.