Govt working to improve viability of Fair Price Shops

The centre is carrying out a pilot study on ways to improve the viability of Fair Price Shops (FPS) that currently distribute food grains and related items provided under government subsidy to weaker section of population.

The pilot study is being carried out at 60 FPS across 4 cities, including Hyderabad, Ghaziabad, Jaipur and Ahmedabad. The central government, with the assistance of respective state governments, is providing handholding to these FPS by partnering with Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) for provision of working capital and B2B online wholesale aggregators for sale of select non-PDS items, especially nutritional items.

The central government has requested all state governments and union territory administrations to engage FPS for offering additional services, including Common Service Centre (CSC) services, banking services through tie-up with banks/ corporate banking correspondents, banking and citizen-centric services of India Post Payment Bank (IPPB), retail sale of small (5kg) LPG cylinders and sale of other commodities/ general store items etc.

Public sector banks have extended loans to 1,15,803 FPS dealers under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana so far.++++++++ 

To address the challenge of finding skilled personnel, the department is examining capacity building programmes or short term skill development courses through the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship (MSDE) to boost the confidence of FPS owners and equip them with the essential entrepreneurship skills for venturing into new areas of business.

State governments have been advised to help improve services at FPS with necessary instructions for display of information boards, preferably made of tin plates with colour painting showing beneficiary’s rights and integration of weighing scale with electronic Point of Sales (ePoS) devices at all FPSs and explore the feasibility of installation of CCTV cameras at all FPSs.