The Government of India operates one of the world’s largest food-based safety nets, under which subsidized grains are provided to 813 million people every month, through a network of over 500,000 last-mile outlets called Fair Price Shops (FPS). Under the current set up, FPS operators manually weigh and distribute the food grain. However, this manual weighing and distribution of grains is not without problems. It requires the people receiving assistance to queue for long hours, there is a high possibility of grain spillage and waste, and may even lead to people not receiving their share of food assistance.
