Ranchi, Mar 27 (PTI) The Jharkhand government's flagship 'Grain ATM' project that aims at modernising the public distribution system has failed to attract more than one bidder even after completion of the second deadline on March 23, an official said on Sunday.

The government is now contemplating extending the last date for submitting the expression of interest by a week or so, he said.

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The food and public distribution department had planned to set up 'Grain ATMs' at 10 locations across the state to check leakages in the supply chain.

The primary focus was to install these multi-commodity automated machines at “high-volume fair price shops and state food corporation godowns in populated areas by June this year, the official said.

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The department also planned to set up 'Grain ATMs' at more than 2,600 fair price shops in the state, he said.

It had accordingly floated an expression of interest (EoI) for the project in February and extended the deadline for submitting bids till March 23.

“Till now, only one bidder has shown interest in the project. To finalise it, we need at least two bidders.

“We are now planning to go for another extension of the last date by a week or so to invite more bidders,” Food, public distribution and consumer affairs director Dilip Tirkey told PTI.

A Ranchi-based bidder has so far shown interest in the project, he said.

“The ‘Grain ATMs' will mainly be established at fair price shops and they will be linked to e-PoS (point of sale) machines. There will be a biometric authentication system in the unit. The benefit of the initiative is that PDS dealers cannot provide lesser amounts of foodgrains to beneficiaries. Once a PDS dealer pushes the button of kg, it will automatically come to the department's record and a beneficiary will get food items, another official said.

The move is to check “irregularities in the supply of ration” as beneficiaries of the public distribution system often lodge complaints against PDS dealers for malpractices.

The department had suspended more than 100 PDS dealers on basis of such complaints in 2020, the official said.

Around 2.28 crore beneficiaries, who are registered under the priority household category of the food security scheme in Jharkhand get 5 kg of grains a month at Re 1 per kg, while 9 lakh BPL households enrolled under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana programme are entitled to 35 kg of grains per month at Re 1 per kg.

Harayana is stated to be India's first state to set up a 'Grain ATM' - ‘Annapurti'- in Gurugram in July 2021. This machine can dispense up to 70 kg of grains within five to seven minutes.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)