Shahin Bepari Lambe
Panaji
The Department of Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs has made GPS-based tracking mandatory for all vehicles transporting essential food commodities across the state with the rollout of a comprehensive Vehicle Location Tracking System (VLTS), said
an official.
“The system has been introduced to strengthen transparency and accountability in the public distribution system,” said
the official.
The department supplies essential commodities such as rice, wheat and sugar through fair price shops (FPSs) to beneficiaries under various schemes. These commodities are procured from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godown at Mormugao and transported by authorised vendors to taluka-level godowns before being delivered to individual fair price shops.
“More than 800 vehicle trips are undertaken every month using around 80 trucks for this purpose,” said the official, adding that the move will ensure close monitoring to prevent diversion or pilferage
The official said the VLTS software enables real-time monitoring of vehicles from the department’s head office, taluka offices
and godowns.
The system tracks vehicle location, speed, ignition status, stoppages and halts. Dispatch points, warehouses and Fair Price Shops have been geofenced, allowing automatic confirmation of vehicle presence at designated locations.
VLTS also ensures end-to-end trip closure by tracking movement from source to destination and logging trip-related events with geo-tagged timestamps. Any delays, deviations or suspicious activity are detected immediately, enabling timely corrective action.
The system allows data archiving and playback of historical trips for a minimum of six months to support audits, investigations and performance reviews. Command and control centres have been strengthened with dashboards, escalation mechanisms and MIS reports, the official said.
