International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics

Volume 119 No. 18 2018, 3251-3264

ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version)
url: http://www.acadpubl.eu/hub/
Special Issue
http://www.acadpubl.eu/hub/

A Study on customer perceptions towards Technological Developments in

Public Distribution Services [smart card] with Reference to Coimbatore
1
S. Rukshana Begum, 2S.Archana

1
Assistant Professor,Department of B.COM CS& IT, VLB Janakiammal college of Arts and
Science, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India

2
Assistant Professor,,Department of B.COM CS& IT, VLB Janakiammal college of Arts and Science,
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India

1 2
ruksiferoz@gmail.com , archanaimmaculate@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
The Indian ration card provides food for the poor people which is distributed by the government
along with the fuel. It provides a distinct identity of person which is useful to update with the
government record. The basic food items provided by government are rice, sugar, wheat. Ration
Card is one of the most important document which acts as identity proof for any individual. If
people are not having their own Ration card they can also apply for the same. The process to
apply for ration card has been facilitated to great extent but now a day this process is online
which comes as blessing for the applicants who hate standing for long time in queues for filling
the application form and then go to the office again to know the status.
Key Words : Smart Card, Public Distribution system.

INTRODUCTION TO SMART CARD

The current Ration Allocation System is an offline one. Due to this, corruption is rampant.
Dealers often falsify records for personal benefit. They also provide the ration items of the poor
people at maximum rates which is not justified. There is a lack of transparency between the
dealer and consumer. Due to this problem of dealer the poor people do not get the items as stated
on their ration card. Moreover, there is no complaint system through which the consumer’s
interests can be protected. Using the Smart Ration Card Automation System, It is established by

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the Government of India under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution and
managed jointly with state governments in India. The traditional PDS is used to distribute
grocery items to India's poor who are valid ration card holders.

The validity and the allocation of the ration cards is monitored by the state governments. A
ration card holder should be given 35 kg of food grain as per the norms of PDS. However, there
are concerns about the efficiency of the distribution process. In order to make it efficient and
improve the current system of PDS we are implementing SMART CARD [SMART RATION
CARD]. Stock availability contains the details about the stocks which are available to the
cardholder. Stock price shows the price of the products and the amount cardholder has to pay for
the blocked products .By stock blocking we can block the commodities (rice, sugar, wheat
etc).After blocking, a message will be generated to the cardholder mobile number as a
confirmation message. By showing the message to ration shopper the cardholder can able to buy
the products.
The network of the ration shops is spread all over in India to provide food security to the people.
This distribution of food and fuel is fully controlled by the government. But it has so many
limitations. Most of the ration shopkeepers keep fake ration cards with them. Due to availability
of all ration items these items are present with the ration shop dealer so he can falsify the records
and use the items to sell in the market loosely. The dealer then does not provide these ration
items to the customers. Many a time’s people are not aware that the items have arrived in the
shop. The dealer then sells these items in increased rates in the market. In this way, in the current
situation we are facing problem due to lack in transparency. There is no such good system yet
developed through which government gets message of usage of grains by the people.

Distribution system is one of the largest government’s economic policies in India. Its main
objective is to provide food grains(sugar, wheat, rice, kerosene etc.) to the public at reasonable
rates. The network of the ration shops is spread all over in India to provide food security to the
people. This distribution of ration is controlled and monitored by central government, along with
the state government. But it has so many limitations. Most of the fair price shopkeepers hold
fake ration cards with them. Due to which, the dealer receives the extra quantity from higher
authority and sells it into the open market. Most of the time people are not aware of the

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availability of ration in ration shop. The dealer may sale ration at higher rates than recommended
by the government or he may do wrong entries in register.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Ration forgery is one of the most difficult challenges faced by the food distribution department.
There may be chances where ration is delivered to the beneficiaries and false records are noted
down, regarding the delivery by commission agent. Ration Distributed (Food Distribution)
system using RF ID based Smart Card along with bio metric authentication that is fingerprint of
Ration Card holder. To develop a system which can customize the current offline ration system
and establish transparent the aged one who are lonely. Every time ration is collected by the
family it is logged in to the Smart Card.The data logging system is connected with cloud to
maintain a centralized inventory across the nation.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

To study the socio demographic profile of the respondents.
To find the factors influencing the customers preference towards smart card.
To study about the customer satisfaction towards Smart card in public distribution
services.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This Study provides active participation in Step towards Digital India.
The aim of the Study is to developing a better, efficient ration card system using QR
Code technology.
Automation of distribution system at the ration shop as well as maintaining the database
at one main control station and updating the database so that the shopkeeper does not
cheat the poor people is what this project aims at achieving.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

AkshadaGadhave,et,al (2018): we have developed automatic rationing system using Radio

Frequency Identification (RFID) technique & ARM7 microcontroller to prevent the ration

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forgery as there are chances that the shopkeeper may sell the material to someone else and take
the profit and put some false amount in their records. In this system, a RFID tag is used that
carries the family member details and the customer needs to show this tag to the RFID reader.
The microcontroller connected to the reader will checks for the user authentication. If the user is
found authentic then the quantity of ration to be given to the customer according to the total
number of family members will be displayed on display device.
AartiBhosalePratimaSabale, PushpakShinde,ShwetaBhor(2017): In this paper, information
about smart ration card system using sensors,RFID,biometric and SMS gateways. This smart
ration card system is implemented to prevent ration forgery. In this,RFID card will contain the
details of family members. Using the biometric the authentication will be provided to the user
and he can take the ration as per his requirements. After that user will get information on mobile
phone using SMS gateway.
Chetan S. KandareVaishali R. Tribhuvan (2017): A Smart System and Application for ration
card contain Biometric and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). To preventing the ration
forgery as there are chances that the shopkeeper my sell the material to someone else and take
the profit and put something false recodes in system. In smart ration system, RFID tag act as
ration card and all details of ration holder and there family member is stored in RFID Tag. RFID
reader is used for reading RFID tag and user verification. The microcontroller connected to the
reader will checks for the user authentication. If the user is found authentic then the quantity of
ration to be given to the customer according to the total number of family members will be
displayed on display device. A smart system is free from thieves. Delivered ration details directly
send through web application to the government of india without any manual feeding and also
sending message to customer’s register mobile number and ration receipt.

Golden Bagul, Brendon Desouza, Tejaswini Gaikwad, AnkushPanghanti(2017): The

Rationing distribution system also called public distribution system distributes food items to the
poor. Major commodities include rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene. In this system QR codes will
be provided instead of current ration cards. Users database is stored which is provided by
Government. The Smart Card must be scanned by the customer to show the details of items
allocated by government, and then it check customer details with stored data to distribute

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material in ration shop. Biometric i.e. Fingerprint scanning will be done for security and
authentication purpose.

DikshaKamble and BharatiLokhande (2016): Customer’s database is stored in

microcontroller which is provided by Government Authority. Customer needs to scan tag to
RFID reader, and then microcontroller checks customer’s details with stored to distribute
material in ration shop. After successful verification, customer needs to enter type of material as
well as quantity of material using keypad. After delivering proper material to consumer, the
microcontroller sends the information to customer as well as PDS authorities using Global
System for Mobile (GSM) technology.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH

Research design is considered as a “blueprint” for research, dealing with at least four
problems: which question to study, which data are relevant, what data to collect, and how to
analyze the results. The best design depends on the research question as well as the orientation of
the researcher.

AREA OF THE STUDY

The study was conducted in Coimbatore city from the smart card users.

SAMPLE DESIGN

Convenience Random sampling.

SAMPLE SIZE

The data are collected from 100 respondents.

SOURCES OF DATA

PRIMARY DATA

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Primary data refers to the first data collection from the primary source. Primary data are always
collected from the source. It is collected either by the investigator himself or through his agents.
The Questionnaire method is used to collect the data for this study.
SECONDARY DATA
Secondary data are the one which are not originally collected but rather obtained from published
and unpublished sources and website.

TOOLS FOR ANALYSIS

Simple Percentage analysis

The tool used for the analysis of data is Simple percentage analysis.
No.of respondents
Simple percentage analysis = X 100

Total no of respondents

Correlation

Correlation is a statistical measurement of the relationship between two variables.

Possible correlations range from +1 to –1. A zero correlation indicates that there is no
relationship between the variables. A correlation of –1 indicates a perfect negative correlation,
meaning that as one variable goes up, the other goes down. A correlation of +1 indicates a
perfect positive correlation, meaning that both variables move in the same direction together.

CHI-SQUARE

O - observed frequency

E - expected frequency

Expected frequency can be calculate by,

RT*CT
E=
N
Where, N-Total number of observations, RT – ROW TOTAL, CT – COLUMN TOTAL.

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Table value is found at 5% Level of significance and for the available degree of freedom.

Degrees of freedom =(R-1)*(C-1) Where,

R-Number of rows

C-Number of columns

Thus chi-square can be calculated by using the formula given below.

Chi Square = (O-E)2/E

If the calculated value is lesser than the tabulated value then the hypothesis is accepted
and if the calculated value is greater than the tabulated value then the hypothesis is rejected.

ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS:

Table:1 Showing The Socio Demographic Profile Of The Respondents

Factors No. of Category No. of Category No. Percentage (%)

Respondents Respondents of Respondents
GENDER Male 44 44
Female 56 56
Total 100 100
AGE Below 15 years 1 1
16 – 30 years 30 30
31 – 45 years 32 32
Above 45 years 37 37
Total 100 100
Married 75 75
MARITAL STATUS Unmarried 25 25
Total 100 100
MONTHLY Below Rs 10000 30 30
INCOME Rs 10001 – Rs15000 41 41
Rs 15001 – Rs 25000 27 27

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Above Rs 25000 2 2
Total 100 100
FAMILY TYPE Joined 42 42
Nuclear 58 58
Total 50 100
NO OF EARNING 1 Member 44 44
MEMBERS IN THE 2 Members 33 33
FAMILY 3 Members 16 16
Above 3 Members 7 7
Total 50 100

Table:2. Showing the Factors influencing the customers preference towards Smartcard

Factor classification No.of. %

respondants
Towards Customer Safety Purpose 30 30
Convenience 20 20
Easy to shop 14 14
SMS alert 6 6
Technological Development 10 10
Prevention of Exploitation 20 20
Towards Dealers Consumer database 7 7
Time Saving 30 30
Expand business reach 8 8
Decrease of Frauds 13 13
Less Formalities 12 12
Instant transactions 30 30

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Table No. 3 Correlation

Gender of the respondents vs Dealer service

Dealer Service
Gender TOTAL
Very Good Good Poor

Male 15 26 3 44

Female 21 32 3 56

TOTAL 36 58 6 100

x y xy x2 y2

44 36 1584 1936 1296

56 58 3248 3136 3364

0 6 0 0 36

100 100 4832 5072 4696

N xy – ( x) ( y)
r=
sqrt N x2 -( x)2 N y2 - ( y)2

= 0.97

The coefficient of correlation is 0.97

Hence x and y are correlated.

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From the above table, it is clear that the coefficient of correlation is +1 (0.97), which
indicates a perfect positive correlation, meaning that both variables, gender of the respondents &
Dealer service move in the same direction together.

Table No. 4. Family Type of the respondents and Usage of SMART card
Hypothesis:
There is no significant relationship between family type of the respondents and
usage of SMART card

Usage of SMART card

Family Type TOTAL
Useful Useless

Joint 39 3 42

Nuclear 49 9 58

TOTAL 88 12 100

TEST RESULT

Degree of Table Calculated Accepted /

Factor Freedom Value Value Rejected S / NS

Monthly
Income 1 3.8 1.62 Accepted NS

Significant – Significant value (0.05) Not Significant – Significant value (0.05)

From the above table, it is clear that the calculated value is less than the table value.
Hence the hypothesis is accepted. Thus it is found that there is no significant relationship
between family type of the respondents and usage of SMART card.

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Table No. 5. Monthly income of the respondents and Preference of Card

Hypothesis:
There is no significant relationship between Monthly income of the respondents and
Preference of SMART Card

SMART card

Family Type Organized comfort Reduce TOTAL

Safety
information fraud

Below Rs 10000 12 3 10 5 30

Rs 10001 - Rs15000 13 3 15 10 41

Rs 15001 – Rs 25000 13 1 8 3 25

Above Rs 25000 2 1 1 0 4

TOTAL 40 8 34 18 100

TEST RESULT

Degree of Table Calculated Accepted /

Factor Freedom Value Value Rejected S / NS

Monthly
Income 9 16.9 4.7 Accepted NS

Significant – Significant value (0.05) Not Significant – Significant value (0.05)

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From the above table, it is clear that the calculated value is less than the table value. Hence the
hypothesis is accepted. Thus it is found that there is no significant relationship between Monthly
income of the respondents and Preference of SMART Card.

SUGGESTION
The consumers of TPDS should be made aware about the benefits of the scheme, prices and
scales of PDS items and all other provisions of the PDS clearly. In this regard the government
should organize, consumer awareness conferences/seminars etc. the government should
constitute some special committees/boards/agencies to aware the consumers especially in rural
areas. There should be a complaint box at each FPS, through which the common consumers can
make complaints about the irregularities at distribution level, to the authority. And the authority
should entertain these complaints on half-monthly basis and should take appropriate action on
finding any irregularity

CONCLUSION
The smart card system is more secure and transparent than the ration card system. Influence of
fraud data entry in the ration database can be maintained simply with the use of this smart ration
card system. Customer can be authenticated using RFID swapping and thumb detection. It is
expected that the smart card system will be more transparent, reliable than the ration card system
Using this smart card system we can have Better management of the ration distribution system.
Govt. can have indirect check on the availability of the ration to the beneficiary. It is transparent
and has control over prices of some commodities in the open market. Dealer will not be able to
keep fake ration cards with them. System helps to modernize traditional rationing and combat
corruption up to a great extent.

Reference

[1] AkshadaGadhave, Manoj Mandlik, JuileeTajane, Prof.A.R.Choure,Department of Electronics &

Telecommunication, Jaihind College of Engineering, Kuran, SavitribaiPhule Pune University,
Pune (MH), India Online ISSN: 0976-9730 , Print ISSN: 0976- 9498, vol 8,issue 1, jan 1 2018.

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[2] AartiBhosalePratimaSabale, PushpakShinde,ShwetaBhorInternational Journal of Computer

Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 180 – No.3, December 2017.

[3] Golden Bagul, Brendon Desouza, Tejaswini Gaikwad, AnkushPanghanti - 2015 Department of
Computer Engineering, A.I.S.S.M.S. College of Engineering, Pune, S.P.P.U, India.

[4] DikshaKamble, BharatiLokhande, PrachitiSardar, TusharKhose “Smart Ration card system using
RFID and Biometrics”, International Journal of Engineering and Computer Science. Volume 5
Issue 12 Dec. 2016.

[5] Dr G. Agila , Dhamayanthi Arumugam,” A Study On Effectiveness Of Promotional

Strategies At Prozone Mall With Reference To Visual Merchandising”, International
Journal of Innovations in Scientific and Engineering Research, Vol. 5, Issue .6 , 2018,
pp.47-56.

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