CHENNAI: The Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) is trying to push its customised hand-held billing machine for use by fair price shops, Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation retail outlets and the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board.
ELCOT awaits the government’s nod for the machine to be used, on a pilot basis, in 400 ration shops in the city and 51 kerosene bunks across the State. It will help to maintain the details of cardholders attached to a particular shop, enable the shopkeeper to do online billing and ascertain stock position at godowns and fair price shops and monthly off-take at retail points, thus doing away with ledgers.
TASMAC, which has over 5,000 retail outlets, is also planning to use the machine to avoid maximum retail price violations.
“We negotiated with the then Co-operation, Food and Consumer Protection Secretary, S. Machendranathan, for quite some time for introduction of our hand-held billing machine at fair price shops. Since he has been moved to the TNEB, it makes our job easier to try this machine in the TNEB too,” ELCOT Managing Director C. Umashankar told The Hindu on Monday.
The machine works on the Global System for Mobile Communication/General Packet Radio System wireless standard.
It will be connected to a central server so that supplies and off-take can be monitored even on a real-time basis and shop, district and taluk-wise.
“We are flooded with more models,” Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Commissioner K. Rajaraman said.
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