The fair price shop as well as financial services first and foremost under NFSA National Food Security Act we have implemented this and we have set up a public distribution system where in we have set up fair price shops and the beneficiaries will go to this particular fair price shop provide the identification and get the subsidised food grains that is the importance of fair price shops in India and there are more than five lakh fair price shops in India which are basically catering or providing the subsidised food grains under NFSA to more than 80 crore people in India. Now, in addition to this, there is also a concept of the common service centres CSC's common service centres and what is the importance of these particular Common Service Centres, a common man who wants to get details regarding a particular scheme and he wants to know whether he is eligible for this particular scheme or not a person who wants to apply for a PAN card a person who wants to apply for let's say Aadhaar etc there are so many financial services that are needed by a common man, they can get all of these particular services at these particular common service centres and over three lakh common service centres have been set up in India and 8000 out of them are basically connected with a fair price shop in India.
Around 8000 of them are connected and joined with fair price shops in India. So, what do you mean by this? Imagine a fair price shop which is also providing the services under Common Service Centre, that is the facilities related to CSC's are also provided. So, if I am a beneficiary under NFSA, I can go to the shop get my ration and at the same point of time imagine I want to apply for a PAN card I can apply at the same fair price shop. So, these particular FPS's provide the services of ration plus they will also provide the services which are associated with common service centres and what is the importance of this, the importance of this is these particular FPS's essentially are the places where the people that is a beneficiaries come on monthly basis to avail the services so, these are one of the last points of providing services in case of a rural India and imagine if these particular FPS's starts providing more and more financial services to the people like this, what are the advantages? One, it will promote financial inclusion and second whenever these particular FPS's will provide the services under CSC they will charge a certain amount of money so, they will be able to earn additional amount of income which will provide them with more incomes that will help them to sustain these particular services. These are some of the advantages that have been attached to the combination of FPS' as well as CSC's.
In recent times the government has stated that around 8000 CSC's are attached to FPS's and we want to expand and we want to ensure that in the next one year 10,000 more CSC's will be attached to the FPS's that is these particular FPS's will provide the ration also and will provide the financial services under CSC's also. In addition to this government also has identified these particular FPS's under Pradana Mantri Mudra Yojna PMMY wherein they can take loans and set up infrastructure facility and start selling agriculture as well as non agriculture common goods to the people which will further supplement their source of revenue, source of income. So, these are some of the very important points related to the FPS's well as financial services.