Fair Price Shops: FCS&CA inks MoU with CSC e-governance Services

SRINAGAR, MAY 12: Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs (FCS&CA) department today signed an MOU with CSC e-Governance Services India Limited here today.

Under the agreement, CSC and PDS services will be extended to the citizens through the network of Fair Price Shops (FPS).

The MoU was signed by the Additional Secretary, Department of FCS&CA, Jugal Kishore Anand, on behalf of the Department and Shahnawaz Rashid, on behalf of the CSC e-Governance Services India Limited, in presence of Commissioner Secretary, Department of Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs, Zubair Ahmad.

The government of India has identified a few initiatives for leveraging e-PoS devices of FPSs to promote their financial viability. One such initiative is providing CSC services through FPSs. It is in this backdrop that the J&K Government entered into an MoU with CSC for leveraging e-PoS devices of FPSs to deliver their services. This step can be seen as a win-win situation for all the stakeholders, particularly FPS dealers and the beneficiaries, as the CSC services will be delivered to beneficiaries at the doorstep, even to the far-off places. The FPS dealers in turn shall earn additional revenue in the shape of service-charge against the services delivered through their FPSs. Availing of this initiative has been kept optional for FPSs.

FPS dealers will collect the service charge from the beneficiaries against each service delivered. The service charge for each service on Digital Seva Portal has been fixed by the respective departments, while the service charge for PDS services shall be defined by the Department of Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs.