Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has urged the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India for early sharing of the National Population Register database for digitisation of ration cards in 29 districts of the state.

In a letter to the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, secretary of food supplies and consumer welfare Madhusudan Padhi said that though his department had earlier in March sought digitised database of the population register for taking up a pilot project to issue digitised ration cards in Puri district, no information has been received so far.

In view of the Supreme Court’s direction in September 2011 to all the states to complete computerisation in the public distribution system (PDS) within a specified timeframe, the population register database has become essential, Padhi said.

He said that meanwhile the state government has decided to undertake a pilot project for five blocks or urban local bodies in five districts, Sundargarh, Ganjam, Koraput, Mayurbhanj and Bhadrak, within three months.

Earlier Balangir was taken as a test case. After success of the pilot project, the state government would replicate the digitisation of the ration cards in rest of the districts, he said.