THE ECONOMIC TIMES NEW DELHI TUESDAY 18 JANUARY 2011 TECHNOLOGY FOR PEOPLE4

Jayadevan PK & Srividya IyerKRISHNAGIRI

LIKE coast guards on pirate patrol, ra-tion officials at Krishnagiri district ofTamil Nadu spend hours on theircomputer screens monitoring theroutes taken by 31 trucks transport-

ing essentials such as rice and sugar from neigh-bouring states to ration shops in the district.

Till recently, Krishnagiri — which bordersAndhra Pradesh and Karnataka — had been fac-ing a shortage of essential commodities meantfor public distribution due to rampant cross-bor-der smuggling. A back-of-the-envelope calcula-tion by one official pegs the profits made bysmugglers at a whopping Rs 70,000 per truck.District administration officials told ET that in2010, over 30 vehicles carrying goods worth Rs20 lakh were seized.

“We used to get news about commodities get-ting smuggled. Now that’s reduced. PDS rice cost-ing Re 1 a kg was being smuggled out and soldoutside for at least Rs 13,” said N Raja, special offi-cer, Krishnagiri Co-operative Marketing Society.

Now, by fitting the trucks with a global posi-tioning system (GPS) — created by El Labs, Ban-galore — that talks back to a central server, the of-ficials have managed to curb the menace to a largeextent. While a GPS device dishes out correct in-formation on location and time taken by each ve-hicle, a website pools all data and presents a real-time view to the officials.

Right from the time essential commodities forfour lakh ration card holders of this district aredispatched from the stockyard, to the point theyare delivered to the cardholder, the entireprocess is being watched by co-operative depart-ment officials using simple yet effective technol-ogy. The trucks are fitted with GPS transpondersand tracked online by a co-operative depart-ment official. If he observes a diversion or a longstopover, he can alert the field officer to checkthe status of the vehicle.

To check pilferage from fair-price shops, the ad-ministrators have installed electronic weighingmachines. Finally, at the time of sale, a general-packet radio service (GPRS) enabled handheldbilling machine is used. Each time a sale is con-cluded at a fair-price shop, the machine prints abill. The bill is generated in Tamil for the conven-ience of the users and the salesmen. And as it getsgenerated, the billing details are updated in thecentral database. Moreover, a report is generatedperiodically to monitor pilferage.

These machines have been installed by Coro-mandel Infotech at 447 fair-price shops across Kr-ishnagiri. Under the PDS system, the district has478 full-time shops, 451 part-time shops and 29women-run shops. “Rest of the shops will be cov-ered soon,” said Bharati, senior executive, Coro-mandel Infotech. This pilot project will be fol-lowed by rollouts in 12 more districts includingMadurai, Coimbatore, Tiruchirapalli and Salem.

Says V Arun Roy, district collector, Krishnagiri:“There has been a noticeable difference in thepublic distribution system. For example, whenwe go for inspection, we have advance informa-tion on the opening and closing stock. That way,we can check pilferage effectively.”

According to the SP Pal report to the PlanningCommission — the last comprehensive govern-ment report on PDS — over 36% of the budget-ary subsidy on food is siphoned off the supplychain and another 21% reaches the above pover-ty line households. Of the estimated 45.41 millionbelow poverty line households, targeted PDS hasreached only 57%.

The problems of targeting errors and ghost cardshave dented the performance and increased thedelivery cost of the targeted public distribution sys-tem, the report said. These, along with certainweaknesses in the delivery mechanism, have led tolarge-scale leakages (36.38%) and diversion(21.45%) of subsidised grains to unintended bene-ficiaries. The Krishnagiri interventions, simple asthey may sound, can impact over 260 million(2006 estimates) below poverty line citizens, oncethey are successfully implemented across India.

India’s public distribution system for foodgrain— operated jointly by the Centre and the stategovernments — has a network of 4.99-lakh fair-price shops, making it the largest such network inthe world. While the Centre is responsible for pro-curement, storage, transportation and bulk allo-cation of foodgrain, the state government is re-sponsible for distribution.

With scams of huge proportions afflicting thesystem, the government is under pressure to im-

prove it. Last week, the Prime Minister’s expertcommittee on the National Food Security Billfavoured distribution of subsidised foodgrainthrough a smart card-based PDS, mainly to checkleakages. C Rangarajan, who heads the PrimeMinister’s economic advisory panel, has in his re-port, praised the efforts of states like Tamil Nadu,Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradeshfor using GPS tracking, bar-coded grain bags andtext message alerts to reduce PDS losses.

An earlier report — the Justice Wadhwa Com-mittee report onPDS — had saidthe problems withour food rationingsystem includemultiple rationcards under a sin-

gle name, faulty record keeping, pilferage andlack of a central monitoring system.

The committee called for a fool-proof monitor-ing system starting from the central store to fairprice shops covering transactions at all levels andtransport. The panel also said the system must beweb-enabled right up to the national level as thiswill make PDS operations transparent.

Says R Balasubramaniam, vigilance director,Karnataka Lokayukta, technological interventionis necessary to track leakages and make the distri-bution system better. He, however, says the stake-

holders are going slow on implementationbecause it involves upsetting the existing cor-rupt set-up. Balasubramaniam was appoint-ed by the Karnataka Lokayukta to investigatecorruption in the public distribution system inthe state and suggest remedial measures.

“Right from classification of the target groupto the point of sale, there is corruption. Theseproblems can solved using a holistic technologi-cal approach,” said Balasubramaniam.

On the flip side, technology intervention canbe subverted at times. “GPS and point-of-saledevices are good but the corrupt are smarter. InChhattisgarh, when the GPS system was in-stalled to track lorries, some truckers ripped it offthe lorry and fitted it on to a motorcycle,” headded. Lack of rigorous quality checks and in-ability to ensure whether the right people aregetting benefited are other bugbears. “There isno way this system can be efficient if the well-to-do siphon off the ration meant for the poor,”said Rajesh Shukla, director, NCAER.

What is now being tested as a pilot in Krish-nagiri, holds promise for addressing India’s big-ger challenges of ensuring that cheap foodreaches target consumers. Technology may notbe an answer to all the problems but as thisTamil Nadu district has shown, it is an importantpart of the solution.

jayadevan.k@timesgroup.com

TECHNOLOGY can be a great leveller especially in emerging nationswhere mass takes precedence over everything else. Access to informa-tion dictates the choice that thecitizens make and that’s wherethe difference lies. A single inter-face outputting the relevant in-formation is what today’s Indiais investing in. While we areslowly automating our back-end processes, where we haveleapfrogged ahead of our west-ern counterparts is in providingthe end-user access, directlythrough kiosks.

The most interesting aspect oftechnology adoption in projectslike Krishnagiri is that there’s norocket science involved. It’severyday technology that’s cre-ating the big change. Everydaytechnology can affect all indus-tries that touch life, like health-care, education, banking and fi-nancial systems. It can driveproductivity and make sure theworld is equalised, providing re-sources to everyone.

With phone connections andthe advent of smartphones,communications and comput-ing has become universalised -so that’s one example of how wecan use technology for people.The telecom industry has grownfrom 28.5 million to over 700million subscribers in the lastdecade.

The difference that a simpleSMS on weather or grain pricescan make in the life of an ordi-nary farmer is for all to see. Nowwith the easy accessibility ofsmartphones a huge chunk ofcellphone users have simplecomputing power in handwhich they can use for makingday-to-day decisions.

No matter how simple theunderlying technology is, thebiggest benefit of technology isthat it acts as an enabler, espe-cially if you can get over the fearof technology.

Again, looking at the telecomexample, it’s quite certain thatcellphone users will not under-stand, and more importantly,are not concerned about the un-derlying technology. It’s moreabout what technology can en-able than what the technologyactually is.

The government has to play abig role in this of course, but a lotof it has to be driven by entre-preneurs. They can make theaccess to market information,ideas, and money more efficientand less reliant on multiple middlemen.

What we’ve done in the information technology industry has tremen-dous applicability in many other industries; it has to be still unraveledthough. The mindsets have to change but there is a lot that can be done.

GUESTS EDITORS’ TAKE

Biggest benefitof tech is that itacts as enabler

Everyday tech can helpfood reach 260 m more

A PDS Tracking Pilot In Krishnagiri Has The Potential To Improve Efficiency, Plug Leakages & Benefit Millions

HAS THE time come for you to get bored ofFacebook or other social networking sites?23-year-old engineering graduates Srikanth

Bohra and Paras Kulhad are waiting for just the daywhen people will look for alternatives and take no-tice of their product, Iddhis. Iddhis is a ‘reversesocial network’ — meant for private, one-on-oneconversations between two people.

Iddhis is aimed at cutting out theclutter created by too many socialnetworking sites and makingcommunication more qualitative andpersonal. Right now, due to the lack ofsuch service, people unwillingly post‘very private’ updates on Facebook orTwitter.

“We are trying to solve this. We believethat every relationship needs to have anidentity, Iddhis is for that. No friend’srequests, no groups. Iddhis is a Buddhistword which means supernatural powerswhich one cannot use for oneself but forothers. We hope to make Iddhis apowerful connecting place forrelationships,” the founders say.

Bohra and Kulhad, from Engineering College,Bikaner, moved to Bangalore in August to createthe website. “We wanted to have something that is

private by default,” says Srikanth Bohra who is alsoa Google Summer of Code scholar and invested thescholarship of $5,000 in the firm. Users find comfortin the private network. “I am on Iddhis with mygirlfriend because I wanted to be on a privatenetwork. I was kind of bored of Facebook,” AnirudhSharma, 23, a researcher with HP Labs.

“With 500 friends on my list and I didnot want to know what they had forbreakfast. I found out about Iddhis onTwitter and I joined it the day itlaunched,” he added.

One cannot have individual accountson the site. It offers only joint accountsand the options of sharing photographs,daily schedules, maintaining timelines,

and even posting complaints.The site has 900 users so far and

adding about a dozen users every day.“Interestingly enough, we havingusers even from the US Army. Theylike the privacy it provides,” saidBohra. The revenue model eventual-ly will be to offer specific deals tousers through travel and tour compa-

nies and also have third-party integrations by col-laborating with gifting companies.

Srividya Iyer

CYBERSPACE BUZZNETWORKED

Reverse social network

Iddhis is aimed atcutting out theclutter of socialnetworking sitesand makingcommunicationmore personal

Wipro joint CEOs, Suresh Vaswani (left) and Girish Paranjpe at the ET newsroom.

CITIZEN SERVICES AND USE OF IT

Everyday tech is creating

big change and can affect

all walks of life. It can drive

productivity and

make sure the world is

equalised, providing

resources to everyone

SURESH VASWANIJOINT-CEO, IT BUSINESS, WIPRO

The government has to play a

big role in this, of course. But

a lot of it has to be driven by

entrepreneurs. Why we are so

optimistic is because we have

been able to do so much

with telecom

GIRISH PARANJPEJOINT-CEO, IT BUSINESS, WIPRO

There has been a noticeable difference. Forexample, when we go for inspection, we haveadvance information on opening and closing stock.

That way, we can check pilferage effectively

V ARUN ROY DISTRICT COLLECTOR, KRISHNAGIRI

THE WORKFLOW

Goods leave

godown on trucksfitted withGPS

1

2Via real-time tracking software, a person tracksthe trucks constantly using a webpage which hasGPS data. Green pointers follow moving trucksand red ones show the positions of those that have stopped

3If an unnecessary stoppage/ diversion isobserved, the person alertsthe field officer and/ or checkswith the driver

People buying ration from a fair-price shop in Krishnagiri, which uses a GPRS device

Point of Sale billing machinesprint bill eliminating the scope

to fudge records Bills are generated in locallanguage so customers

can check what theyhave bought

Goods reach fair-price shops safely.Electronic weighing at shops

reducespilferage

4

5

6Sale data is updated inthe central database using GPRSwhich is monitored periodically.Sale data is compared with stockposition to eliminate theft

GEE

TAN

JALI

HOW IT

WORKS

PHOTOS: NARASIMHA MURTHY