Ration vending machine to check malpractices

THANJAVUR: Modelled on the lines of an ATM machine, four engineering students from TN have created a device that can vend monthly ration to the common man.Showcasing their invention to a minister in Thanjavur, P Silambarasan, R Anand, Raghunarayanan, Punniyamurthy and Premchand, who are second-year B Tech students of Sastra University, Anjalai Ammal Engineering College and SRM University, claimed that PDS vending machines will reduce the human error and would lead to a clean and transparent disbursal of ration. Explaining the working of the vending machine, the students said instead of the traditional ration cards, smart card pre-programmed with consumer data, ration allocation would be issued to the users. This smart card could be used, like a banking ATM card, to swipe in the vending machine and select the items required. The smart cards could be recharge online or from the nearest recharging centres, said the techies. Features such as fingerprint, iris scan and PIN numbers would be incorporated once the vending machine is incorporated on a larger scale.