New Delhi: India’s first multi-commodity food grain ATM, called Annapurti, has been installed in the Farrukhnagar area of Gurugram, as part of an initiative of the Haryana government to streamline the supply of food grain at government-run ration shops.
Once successful, the state government plans to set up three more grain ATMs across the state.
Installed under the World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nations, it is called an automated, multi-commodity, Grain Dispensing Machine (GDM) that can dispense up to 70 kg of grains within 7 minutes at a time. It will dispense wheat, rice, and millet.
Haryana’s Deputy Chief Minister and Food and Civil Supplies Minister Dushyant Chautala tweeted: “I announce that India’s first food grain ATM, Annapurti, has been set up in the Gurugram district of Haryana. The purpose of this ATM is to make distributions of grains at government-run ration shops easy and hassle-free,” he wrote in Hindi.
The food grain ATM is an automatic machine that operates on a biometric system with a touch screen where consumers are required to enter their ration card or Aadhar card details to automatically receive the prescribed grains in the bags placed under the machine.
“The purpose of installing this machine is to ensure the right quantity of ration reaches beneficiaries with minimum hassle. It will benefit consumers and redress the complaints on the shortage of food grains at government depots. It will also help ensure transparency in the public food distribution system and save the time of depot operators,” Chautala said.
(Avya Mathur)
