Marching towards a hunger free society

– The Biometric way

“According to UN, about 25,000 people die

every day of hunger or hunger-related causes.

This is one person every three and a half
seconds. Unfortunately, it is children who die
most often. This is inspite of plenty of food in
the world for everyone.”
Governments in India at all levels implement different
welfare Schemes for deprived sections of the society.
These Schemes could be either Central, State specific
or a Joint collaboration between the Centre and the
St a k e Ho l d e r s o f P r o je c t :
States.
Department of Food & Civil Supplies,
The Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) in
Government of Orissa, is the department for whom
India is one such welfare scheme aimed at reducing
the project is executed. Rayagada district in Orissa
poverty through the mechanism of delivering food
has been chosen for implementation of this project.
grains at affordable prices to the poor households.
Under the TPDS, essential commodities like Rice,
UN World Food Programme (UNWFP), the
Wheat, Sugar, Kerosene etc. are distributed to citizens
world’s largest international food aid organization
on a monthly basis through a network of Fair Price
under the aegis of United Nations provides food and
Shops(FPS) also known as Ration Shops. The
development assistance to developing nations like
identified beneficiaries are issued ration cards which
India. This project is funded by WFP.
they produce before the FPS to take delivery of the
Boston Consulting Group is a global management
food grains / commodities.
consulting company.BCG is assisting UNWFP to
It is often found that the benefits of TPDS do not reach
strengthen the TPDS.
the targeted beneficiaries making it inefficient and
ineffective. This is due to large Errors of Exclusion
4G Identity Solutions, the leading biometric solution
(of BPL families) and Inclusion (of APL), and by the
provider in India provided the end to end solution for
prevalence of millions of ghost cards. As per the data
enrolling one million citizens which included data
placed before Indian Parliament (2009), it is estimated
digitization, data cleansing, biometric enrollment
that there are about 23 million ghost ration cards and
(Iris, finger & face), biometric de-duplication,
about 12.1 million deserving poor are left out this food
creation of unique citizen ID database and printing of
safety net.
ration card.
In Orissa, the state government has realized the
severity of this problem and has decided to reissue
Comat Technologies is the operations vendor
ration cards based on biometric system and weed out
responsible for enrollment of the citizens and
the duplicate/bogus cards.
distribution of the ration cards
“Poverty devastates families, communities and nations. It causes instability and political
unrest and fuels conflict." -- Kofi Annan

Project
The UNWFP has undertaken this project on behalf of the Government of Orissa to reissue ration cards based on biometric
system to better manage and monitor the distribution of food grains in Rayagada District. This project is being carried out to
strengthen the distribution system of the Department of Food & Civil Supplies, Government of Orissa by leveraging
Biometric technology based solutions.
The first of its kind, the project incorporated the cutting edge biometric technologies and best management processes to
ensure that distribution of ration cards to citizens is done cost effectively and efficiently. The project includes capturing of
beneficiaries biographic and multi biometric (face, finger and iris) data, creating a unique database by eliminating duplicate
entries using biometrics algorithms, printing and distributing the ration cards to the citizens.
4G Identity Solutions with its vast experience in designing and deploying biometric based Identity Management solutions
has been awarded this project through global competitive bidding. 4G’s scope of work included data digitization, data
cleansing, biometric enrollment (Iris, finger & face), biometric de-duplication, creation of unique citizen ID database and
printing of ration card. This project is targeted to enroll one million citizens in the entire district of Rayagada in the state of
Orissa.

Project Work Flow

Step 1: The old ration card registers were digitized and mapped to the database of BPL survey done in 1997 along with the
household survey data of 2002. The consolidated list of target beneficiaries was prepared.

Step 2: The gram panchayat wise target beneficiary database was transferred to the enrolment stations located in the
Designated Photography Locations (DPL) before commencement of the enrollment process. Wide publicity using posters,
tom-tom and public announcement systems was given in the villages requesting them to visit the DPL’s for the enrollment.

Step 3: Family wise enrollment of the target beneficiaries was undertaken by capturing the biographic and biometric data
(4-4-2 slap fingerprints, 2- Iris and Facial Photograph). Since the DPL’s are located in remote areas with no internet
connectivity, enrollment was done in a decentralized manner using standalone systems.

Step 4: Periodical backups were taken from the DPL enrolment stations and sent to 4G’s data centre for data aggregation.

Step 5: The aggregated data from the DPL’s was de-duplicated using 4Gs multi modal biometric engine to check for
fraudulent enrolments. The identified duplicates were verified in the field to weed out duplicate beneficiaries.

Step 6: The final database of unique card holders was generated and stored in a centralized citizen database
Step 7: The households in the rural areas will be given laminated ration cards along with bar coded coupons by
incorporating security features to make them tamper proof and prevent replication. The laminated card will be presented by
the cardholder to the FPS for verification and the coupons are surrendered for taking delivery of entitled commodities. The
FPS dealer will surrender the coupons to the civil supplies department where they are scanned and destroyed. The data from
the scanning device will be transmitted to the centralized server using internet connectivity.
Step 8: The households in the urban areas will be given smart cards containing details of the card holder and household
members, their biometric templates and their entitlements. The smart card is swiped in the Point of Sale (PoS) device and
the transaction is authenticated by the biometric of the cardholder. The transaction data containing the card ID, quantities
delivered to the card holder, time etc will be transmitted from the PoS device to the centralized server using GPRS
connectivity.
Step 9: The data in the centralized server will enable the civil supplies department to get reports on the quantities of
commodities delivered to the ration card holders and arrive at the closing balance of commodities at the FPS. The closing
balance will enable the civil supplies department to derive at the allotment for the succeeding months. The data in central
server can also be given access to public and other government departments with a view to enhance transparency and
accountability.

www.4Gid.com
“The good news is we have the technology and the tools to alleviate poverty on a global
scale. All that is standing in our way is education and will.” -- Natalie Portman

Project Highlights Implementation challenges and lessons learnt:

™ Enrolment of close to 1 million citizens’ multimodal
biometrics (Iris, Finger and Face).
™ Close to 12 million biometric images captured.
™ 30 mobile enrolment stations in rural and remote tribal
areas for Enrollment.
™ Worlds leading L1’s Daugman 2007 Iris Algorithm, SIRIS
matching platform and ABIS Finger print matching
platform used for this project.
™ 4G’s In-house finger print segmentation and noise
removal algorithm used.
™ Integration of multi biometric devices into a 4G’s single
enrolment application.
™ Centralized data centre where data from all enrollment
stations is aggregated for de-duplication of data.
™ Comprehensive end user training for citizen enrolment
™ Dedicated onsite technical support
™ Successful enrolment is the key to the success of any
biometric project.
™ Multi-modal biometrics is preferred mode over a single
biometric as each of them has their own advantages during
enrollment & verification. Moreover, enrolment of citizens
is a major component of the total project cost and it is
prudent to capture multi-modal biometrics of a citizen at
one go instead of making them repeatedly visit the
enrollment centres as and when a new biometric has to be
captured.
™ Support & involvement of key stakeholders is essential for
successful implementation of the project.
™ End user acceptance and training is critical to the
successful deployment of projects of this size and nature.
™ Logistics in rural and tribal areas with inadequate
infrastructure and transportation facilities pose the greatest
challenge.
™ The integrated beneficiary database developed as a result
of this process can be used to deliver other benefits to

TPDS Statistics:
™ TPDS with a network of about 478,000 Fair Price Shops (FPS) is perhaps the largest distribution network of its type in the world.
™ TPDS extends to more than 50 million households across the country
™ Central Govt. alone budgets close to Rs 5000 Billion on food subsidy to meet the difference between economic cost of food grains and the
issue price fixed for TPDS. In addition each state also budgets billions of rupees on food subsidy depending on the population in the state.
™ In some states exclusion errors are as high as 40% and inclusion errors range from 10% to 40%.
™ Ghost ration cards are a staggering 23 million for the entire country.
™ 12.1 Million deserving poor left out of the TPDS.
™ In Orissa alone, the estimated number of ghost ration cards is about 250,000.
™ A study by Planning Commission of India (2005) has indicated that about 58% of the subsidized food grain allocated by the Central
Government to the States / Union Territories does not reach the BPL families

www.4Gid.com
“There's enough on this planet for everyone's needs but not for everyone's greed.”
--Mahatma Gandhi

4G’s multi-modal biometric identity platform

4G provided the end-to-end technology solution for completing all activities envisaged in the project. Key to the successful
implementation of the project is the deployment of 4G’s Multi-Modal Biometric Identity Platform (Figure 2). 4G’s Identity Platform is a
robust, scalable, interoperable identification engine that interfaces and manages multi-biometric and biographic search technologies.
4G’s platform provides an XML based interface to the custom-built application for identification and/or verification of a person’s
identity. The platform supports key features like Interoperability, Scalability, Extensibility, Flexibility and adherence to open standards.

4G’s multi-modal biometric identity platform

4G provided the end-to-end technology solution for completing all activities envisaged in the project. Key to the successful
implementation of the project is the deployment of 4G’s Multi-Modal Biometric Identity Platform (Figure 2). 4G’s Identity Platform is a
robust, scalable, interoperable identification engine that interfaces and manages multi-biometric and biographic search technologies.
4G’s platform provides an XML based interface to the custom-built application for identification and/or verification of a person’s
identity. The platform supports key features like Interoperability, Scalability, Extensibility, Flexibility and adherence to open standards.

Many Applications – One ID Management Solution

Application Layer
Ration Card Social Security Health Housing
Management System Pensions Insurance Schemes MIS Portal

National Rural Employment Farmers Welfare Welfare

Others
Guarantee Schemes (NREGS) Insurance Scholarships Schemes

Identity
4G Identity Platform DB
4G Core Identity Engine
Client Interface

Department
Specific DBs

Iris Fingerprint Facial

Matching Matching Matching
System System System
Iris Reader Camera Fingerprint Smart
Card Matching systems
Biometric Devices

Interoperability: 4G’s Identity Platform is capable of integrating not only multiple biometric devices but also search engine algorithms
for iris, finger, face and biographic data.
Scalability: 4G’s Identity Platform can easily scale up as the size of the deployment increases in terms of the number of people enrolled.
4G’s web server architecture can seamlessly integrate with additional servers and can be configured to suit licensing policies from
various biometric vendors.
Extensible: 4G’s Identity Platform is extensible as it has been developed using a modular software design approach. Modules can be
added in a plug-and-play manner and can be integrated to suit customer requirements. Components can be configured for centralized or
de-centralized deployments.
Flexibility: 4G’s Identity Platform enables development of tailor made solutions to meet customer specific requirements. Various
enterprise architectures and legacy systems can be integrated with 4G’s web service architecture.
Open Standards: 4G’s Identity Platform supports open standards that enable creation of biometric data which is compliant with
International Biometric standards. i.e. CBEFF (Common Biometric Exchange File Format), NIST (National Institute of Standards and
Technology), ANSI (American National Standards Institute), and ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization).

4G Identity Solutions Private Ltd.

Plot No. 241, Prashasan Nagar, Road No. 72,

Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad – 500 034, India
Tel: +91-40-23558789 Fax: +91-40-23558769
www.4Gid.com sales@4gid.com

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