Hyderabad was among the four major cities where a pilot study is being conducted to improve the viability of 60 fair price shops (FPS), according to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution on Wednesday. The study is being conducted in Hyderabad, Ghaziabad, Jaipur and Ahmedabad by the Central government in coordination with States concerned to provide handholding assistance to these FPS shops by partnering with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) for provision of working capital and B2B online wholesale aggregators for sale of non-PDS items with focus on nutritional items. This information was given by the Union Minister of State for the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Nimuben Jayantibhai Bambhaniya in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
As part of efforts to improve the viability of FPSs, the Central government has taken various initiatives and requested all State and UT governments to implement additional services at the FPSs, including Common Service Centre (CSC) services, banking services through tie-up with banks or corporate banking correspondents, banking and citizen-centric services of India Post Payment Bank (IPPB), retail sale of 5kg LPG cylinders and sale of other commodities and general store items etc. Further, to address the skill development challenges, the department is exploring possibilities of conducting capacity building programs or short term skill development courses through the .