A consortium led by HCL Infosystems bagged what is believed to be India’s largest public distribution system (PDS) system implementation order form the Madhya Pradesh (MP) government.

The food-coupon based Targeted Public Distribution Systems (TPDS) in the state to be implemented by the consortium will be designed and built on the UIDAI guidelines. The consortium expects over 10 million transactions to be recorded on the platform per month at Rs. 10.98 (per transaction per family) spread over 78 months. While the BPL & AAY families (10 million approx.) would get access to the scheme for free, the APL families (8milliion approx.) will be paying a one-time subsidised registration fee of Rs. 250, says the consortium.

Speaking on the occasion J.V Ramamurthy, President & COO, HCL Infosystems said, “It gives me immense pleasure to see HCL Infosystems led consortium given this opportunity to lead the way with India’s first state wide deployment for a technology led PDS solution. Technology today has an intrinsic role to play in people’s life and it is encouraging to see the authorities enabling this change. We really appreciate the vision of the Government of Madhya Pradesh to become the first state in India to allow technology intervention in revolutionizing the PDS which is fraught with issues around efficiency and transparency. Public Distribution System is vital for sustained life of the people living below poverty line and this project is a step in the right direction to make the Public Distribution System more robust and effective, empowering the underprivileged with systems that are truly people centric.”