udaipur uniformity has great significance as it builds brand awareness and instills responsibility to weed out corruption and leakage in the public distribution system pds and help common man distinguish fair price shops fps from other outlets in any crowded market place the district administration has launched a one themeone design project chittorgarh is the first district not only in rajasthan but perhaps in the country too to have taken this unique initiativethe district which has 682 licensed ration or fair price shops in its 11 blocks are being redesigned with uniform exteriors every fps would stand out from other outlets with its yellowgreen oilpainted front wall bearing a mahatma gandhi charkha logo and the beti bachaobeti padhao slogan chittorgarh collector chetan ram deora told toi over 10 lakh persons from 263 lakh families would benefit from it we embarked on the project in january and had almost completed 80 per cent of the task by march but unfortunately due to the lockdown the project came to a halt now it has gained momentum and all the shops would be seen in the new identical pattern by this week the project is the brainchild of beezal surana the district supply officer who took charge around seven months ago this is the first posting of the 30yearold officer who is still in her probation after taking charge of the office when i first set out to inspect the fpss i was completely puzzled as it was very difficult to identify authorised ration shops from ordinary provision stores i realized if it is annoying for an officer of the department it would be equally troublesome for a common man too and hence the idea struck upon to give an identical design to our ration shops beezal told toi the department had no problems in convincing the license holders all willingly agreed as we gave them the model to follow they painted their shops in the designated colors and pattern which cost them around rs 1000 the department did not spend a penny the officer said the font and colours remain same while the size differs for each shop as per its area the new exterior wall has a display block for commodities with their prices and stock availability which has to be regularly updated also displayed are license holders name details of the supply office and helpline numbershardly do people know that for every fair price shop there is a vigilance committee having 5 members like sarpanch gram sachiv principal and teachers of the government schools who could be approached by the consumer for any grievance or mismanagement at the ration shop in the new exterior the names and numbers of the committee members too have to be compulsorily displayed the collector said complaints had ushered in the first month as people became vigilant and informed about the misconduct in some of the shops we took action and reprimanded the wrong doers on the complaints and now gradually the sellers are improving