Elderly face difficulties in availing subsidy at utility stores

People complain of facing great difficulties in purchasing items on subsidised rates at the government’s utility stores because of a cumbersome verification process, involving the show of the computerised national identity card (CNIC) and mobile phone for one-time password (OTP) code.

There are complaints that some elderly citizens, who do not have the mobile phone, are unable to purchase goods at subsidised rates under a scheme announced by the previous government to give targeted subsidies through the utility stores.

The scheme made it mandatory for the citizens to show their CNICs in order to prevent hoarding and to maximise the outreach. The store management verifies the CNIC of the customer with an OTP code which the user receives on his mobile. After that the customer can make the purchases.

However, many customers face difficulties because of server-end problems. Sources in the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) confirmed that their system was slow and the OTP was not being received on time despite repeated attempts, due to which customers had to wait.

On the other hand, some elderly men and women, who go to Utility Stores with CNICs but did not have a mobile phone with them or do not possess one are also unable to get their credentials validated for making the purchases.

The USC spokesperson said that they had implemented the validation system to verify the CNICs with the National Database & Registration Authority (Nadra) so that only deserving persons could avail the targeted subsidies.

USC spokesperson said that if someone did not have the mobile phone, they should give the phone number of a family member so that it could be registered. “The system is for public convenience, it is not meant to hurt anyone. This system also brings transparency,” The USC spokesperson added.