The situation at most of the ration depots in Vizag has been grim for the last one week. Under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, beneficiaries get 5kg of free grain every month. According to sources, Andhra Pradesh has around 29,000 ration depots logging in for distributing free rice grains under this scheme. This scheme has been extended till November 2021. A technical glitch in the servers at ration depots, in Vizag city, is making it difficult for beneficiaries to get rations. People are having to wait in long queues at these depots.
For the past one week, around 400 ration depots in Vizag have witnessed people waiting in long queues since morning. This technical glitch in the server has slowed down the verification process, making the beneficiaries wait for a long time. The situation is the same at most ration depots in the district.
All 29,000 ration depots were logging in to the website almost at the same time. Thereby, slowing down the server. In many of the ration depots, beneficiaries have to wait for 2-3 hours and are later told to come back in the afternoon. It is learnt that the biometric fingerprint is not detected immediately and people have to wait for hours. Looking at the situation at a few depots, many people are worrying about the spread of Covid-19 with no social distancing being followed.
“We came in the morning to get free rice, leaving away all the household work. The wait continued even in the afternoon. This has been the situation everyday, where the staff at the depots have been struggling to get server problems solved”, said a beneficiary from Pithapuram Colony in Visakhapatnam.
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