Haryana Food and Supplies Minister Mahender Pratap Singh on Thursday said that about 56 lakh eligible families of the state would be issued Smart Ration Cards under various categories.

A Smart Card project, which is a pilot project of the Central Government, has been introduced only in Haryana and Union Territory of Chandigarh, Singh said replying to a calling attention notice submitted by MLA Bharat Bhushan Batra in the ongoing session of Haryana Assembly, here.

Singh said that the state government is committed to streamlining the working of the Public Distribution System in the state.

The Smart Card project provides a technology solution to the problems of leakage and diversion in the PDS.

The total project cost is over Rs 137 crore, he said, adding the ground work on the project has already been initiated.

In the first phase of the project, four blocks Ambala, Sirsa, Sonipat and Gharaunda have been selected on pilot basis. The field camps were organized in these four blocks to capture the fingerprint impressions of all the 10 fingers of all family members above 12 years of age.

In addition, iris data of family members above five years of age was also captured for de-duplication. The unique feature of the Smart Card project in Haryana is its integration with Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), he informed the House.

Till date 6.40 lakh residents? data has been digitized, out of which 5.80 lakh residents have been enrolled and 4.32 lakh Unique Identification (UID) numbers have been issued.

Complete rollout of the project is expected to be completed by June 2013, he said.

The smart ration cards will have different color strips for different categories of families (Pink for Antodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), Yellow for Below Poverty Line and Green for Above Poverty Line).

Fingerprint of three authorized members of the family who usually go for drawing essential commodities will be stored in the chip of the card and essential commodities would be issued after electronic authentication of authorized recipient.

Smart ration cards will be issued after complete biometric de-duplication by UIDAI which will ensure that the menace of bogus ation cards is removed once for all, he said.

In addition, monthly entitlements of essential commodities will also be stored in the chip of smart card, he said.

The Minister also informed the House that as per survey conducted by the Rural Development and Urban Local Bodies Departments Haryana, there are 12.97 lakh BPL families in the State.