Udupi: The final year Electronics & Communication Engineering students of Shri Madhwa Vadiraja Institute of Technology have designed a unique ration distribution system making use of GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) and BAN (Body Area Network) technologies.

In the present ration distribution system there are possibilities of intentional and unintentional human errors leading to inaccurate quantity of material dispersed to the consumer. Further, if the consumer does not buy the month’s ration, then the supplier might sell it to unauthorized people without informing the higher authorities or to the actual consumer. In the proposed system, the consumer has to touch the BAN reader, upon which the microcontroller will verify the consumer details and provides the quantity of ration materials available for the current month. The consumer has to then specify the required quantity of materials such as rice, wheat, kerosene, etc. using a keypad and the system will disburse the specified amount of materials automaticallyby microprocessor-controlled valves. After disbursing the materials, the system will also send relevant message to the consumer’s mobile and the government officials. In this way, corruption and wastage of food materials can be eliminated from the public distribution system.

The system was developed by the students VenkateshDiwakar, Hithesh Kumar, SudeepNaik and H. Vishwanath, with the guidance and support of Assistant Professor KusumaPrabhu and Prof Dr Balachandra Achar.