Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy flagged off 2, 500 PDS vehicles, at Benz Circle in Vijayawada on Thursday. The PDS Vehicles for door delivery of rice and other essentials to the beneficiaries in Krishna, Guntur and West Godavari districts.
The PDS door delivery system will be implemented in a full-fledged manner across the State from February 1^st. YS Jagan inspected the Mobile Dispensing Units and interacted with the MDUs operators and handedover vehicles keys to them. These vehicles are part of 9,260 MDUs procured at a cost of Rs 539 crore. Further, the government will be spending Rs 830 crore per year to enable door-delivery of essentials across the State.

Door delivery of ration is one of the promises made by YS Jagan Mohan Reddy during his 3,648 km Padayatra before the 2019 elections during which he witnessed elderly and differently-abled people waiting in long queues to get the ration supplies, which were of poor quality.

The MDUs were provided by the government at 60 per cent subsidy to eligible beneficiaries through various corporations. The value of each vehicle is Rs 5.81 lakh, out of which Rs 3, 48,600 was provided as subsidy from various Corporations. In all, 700 vehicles are from ST Corporation, 2,300 from SC Corporation and 3,800 from BC Corporation. To ensure transparency, the biometric system will be followed and ration will be supplied in reusable bags, which were released by the Chief Minister on Thursday.

Every bag of rice will be sealed and tagged with unique code and only opened in the presence of the beneficiaries. Every MDU is equipped with GPS, for keeping track of their movements and the beneficiaries will be informed of the time when the vehicles will arrive at their doorstep. They can also keep track of the MDUs using a mobile application.