Rice will come out as soon as you insert the ration card in the machine, the first Rice ATM opened in this state

Ajay Kumar Nath

• Bhubaneswar,
• 08 August 2024,
• (Updated 08 August 2024, 11:42 PM IST)

You must have seen money coming out of an ATM, but have you ever seen grains coming out of an ATM? Rice ATMs in Odisha will now dispense rice. In fact, India has got its first ‘Rice ATM’ due to a major technological development in the food sector. Krishna Chandra Patra, Food Supply and Consumer Welfare Minister of the Odisha Government, launched India’s first Rice ATM on Thursday at a warehouse in Mancheshwar area of ​​Bhubaneswar.

Ration card holders can withdraw 25 kg of rice at a time through Rice ATM. When the ration card holders enter the ration card number on the touch screen display of the Rice ATM, rice can be withdrawn from the Rice ATM only after biometric authentication.

Food Supply Minister Patra said that the Rice ATM was tested for ration card beneficiaries and it is India’s first Rice ATM. If it is successful, similar Rice ATMs will be installed in all the district headquarters in the coming days.

This will enable beneficiaries to get rice in the correct weight and they will not have to stand in long queues for ration. This will also help in preventing any kind of possible fraud and getting rid of fraudulent rice dealers. This Rice ATM has been launched on a pilot basis in Bhubaneswar. There is a plan to open it in all 30 districts of Odisha. If successful, this model can potentially be expanded to other states under the One Nation One Ration Card scheme.

Projects involved in agreements with WFP
Let us tell you that the Odisha government had signed several partnership agreements with the World Food Program (WFP) in the year 2021. Some of the projects to be started under these include distribution system, paddy procurement, grain ATM, smart mobile storage unit.