The Jharkhand government spent Rs 250 crore as rent on electronic point of sale (EPoS) machines for distribution of food grains when it could have bought them for Rs 78 crore, a Congress MLA said Monday.

Over 5 years – from August, 2016 till August 2021 – the state paid Rs 4 crore every month on an average as rent for the machines, which are used for biometric authentication of beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act.

The expenditure came to light Monday when, during the winter session of the state Assembly, Congress MLA Pradeep Yadav questioned his own party colleague Rameshwar Oraon, who holds the Food, Public Distribution and Civil Supplies portfolio.

“I have come in this house raising an important question… the government has spent more than Rs 250 crore in the last five years on EPoS machines… whereas the per unit cost of this machine is Rs 24,910, and the food department has said the amount could have been Rs 78.67 crore,” Yadav said.

Yadav also questioned the “huge” interest levied on the rental. “One buys a car on a 6-7% rate of interest, but here the rate of interest is huge… There has to be a different option to this problem. This is a loot,” he said. He also asked why the state had been charged Rs 22 crore per year for maintenance of the EpoS equipment when the same “could have been done for under Rs 10 crore annually”.

Minister Rameshwar Oraon responded by saying the machines were rented out by the previous government, led by BJP leader Raghubar Das, and that since August 2021, as per agreement, the government now owned the EPoS machines and paid only maintenance charges. He, however, denied the maintenance charges were “wasteful”.

“Now to the question as to why Rs 22 crore and not Rs 10 crore. The issue is that the servicing has to be done by the same vendor. Also, if we had bought new machines and gone for servicing, it would have cost the government more than Rs 100 crore… and on the technical committee’s recommendation we did not buy any more,” Oraon said, adding “We saved money.”

Yadav responded again by saying, “the previous government had done a scam and the department should accept it.”

The Raghubar Das government had brought in the EPoS machines after making it mandatory for beneficiaries to link their Aadhar cards with the ration cards. The Right to Food Campaign, a group of NGOs working for food security, had however criticised the move, saying lack of internet or technical glitches in accessing food grains have led to ‘hunger deaths’.

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Abhishek AngadAbhishek Angad reports from Jharkhand for The Indian Express... read more