Thiruvananthapuram: The government has decided to close over 14,000 ration shops in the State till April 28, Friday after failing to resolve the technical issues in the Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) system due to a server failure. The shops were closed by Thursday noon after the state Civil Supplies Commissioner issued an order to cancel the operations. The supply had gone haywire from Monday. In effect, there has been no supply of ration for five days. This is for the first time that the ration shops have remained closed for these many days.

Meanwhile, the ration shops will resume operations partially from Saturday in 7 districts. The Civil Supplies Department has ordered to restrict the supply of ration in mornings and evenings for three days starting from Saturday.

Though, the Hyderabad unit of the Central agency, National Informatics Centre (NIC), tried to rectify the problem in the EPOS system on Wednesday, they did not succeed. The shops were closed after the NIC asked for more time to set right the problem at the high level meeting conducted under the chairmanship of Civil Supplies Minister G R Anil.

In the past three days, ration shops in Kerala have functioned only for two hours a day. The total number of persons who bought ration is below 3 lakh. A total of 43.34 lakh persons (46.34%) of the 93.53 lakh card holders are yet to buy ration in April. The ration for April could be bought till May 5. As per the usual procedure, the ration shops are expected to start supply of monthly ration on 6th of every month.

Partial functioning for three days
The arrangements for April 29, May 2 and 3 are as follows:
8 am to 1 pm.: Wayanad, Malappuram, Palakkad, Thrissur, Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta, and Kollam districts.
2 pm to 7 pm.: Kasaragod, Kannur, Kozhikode, Ernakulam, Kottayam, Idukki, and Thiruvananthapuram districts