Chandigarh:  Haryana Government installed India’s first Grain ATM at Farrukhnagar in Gurugram as a pilot project. The installation of Grain ATM’s will resolve the consumers’ problems with the ration shop dealers, said Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala.

The consumers in Gurugram will no longer have to stand in long queues, nor worry about the shopkeeper giving fewer rations, he said. The purpose of installing this machine is to ensure that the right quantity should reach the right beneficiary with minimum hassle.

The Haryana Government plans to install these machines at its depots across the state. The Deputy CM said this would not only benefit the consumers but would also end the hassle regarding shortage of food grains at Government depots and would bring greater transparency in the public distribution system. Grain ATMs would prove helpful in distributing food grains to the government depot operators and would also save their time as well, he said.

Grain ATM is an automatic machine which works like a bank ATM. It installed under the UN’s World Food Programme, it is called Automated, Multi Commodity, and Grain Dispensing Machine. It can dispense up to 70 kg of grains within five to seven minutes at a time. Grain ATM is equipped with biometric system with a touch screen, where the beneficiary will have to enter the Aadhaar card or ration card number.

At present, distribution of wheat has started from the Grain ATM machine installed in Farrukhnagar. Biometric authentication of food grains prescribed by the government to the beneficiaries will be automatically filled in the bags placed under the machine. Three types of food grains wheat, rice and millet can be distributed through this machine.