Battling food shortages, the Venezuelan government is rolling out a new ID system that is either a grocery loyalty card with extra muscle or the most dramatic step yet towards rationing in Venezuela, depending on who is describing it.

President Nicolás Maduro's administration says the cards to track families' purchases will foil people who stock up on groceries at subsidised prices and then illegally resell them for several times the amount. Critics say it's another sign the oil-rich Venezuelan economy is headed toward Cuba-style dysfunction.

Registration begins at more than 100 government-run supermarkets across the country on Tuesday and working-class shoppers – who sometimes endure hours-long queues at the stores to buy cut-price groceries – are welcoming the plan.

"The rich people have things all hoarded away, and they pull the strings," said Juan Rodriguez, who waited two hours to enter the government-run Abastos Bicentenario supermarket near downtown Caracas on Monday, then waited three hours more to check out.

Rigid currency controls and a shortage of US dollars make it increasingly difficult for Venezuelans to find imported basic products such as milk, flour, toilet paper and cooking oil.

In January, more than a quarter of basic staples were out of stock in Venezuelan stores, according to the central bank's scarcity index. The shortages are among the problems cited by Maduro's opponents who have been staging protests since mid-February.

Reflecting Maduro's increasingly militarised discourse against opponents he accuses of waging "economic war", the government is calling the new programme the "system of secure supply".

Patrons will register with their fingerprints, and the new ID card will be linked to a computer system that monitors purchases. The food minister, Félix Osorio, said it will sound an alarm when it detects suspicious purchasing patterns, barring people from buying the same goods every day. But he also said the cards would be voluntary, with incentives such as discounts and entry into raffles for homes and cars.

A local consumer watchdog, the National User and Consumer Alliance, invoked the spectre of Cuba's struggling economy and called the ID programme rationing by another name. It predicted that Venezuelans without cards would soon be barred from shopping at state supermarkets.

After five decades of rationing basic goods for Cubans, President Raul Castro's communist government is phasing out subsidised foodstuffs as it opens the island's economy to private enterprise. Cubans most dependent on the rationed goods say that in recent years their monthly quotas provided only enough food for a couple of weeks.

Until now, Venezuela's restrictions on purchases have been toughest in its cities on the border with Colombia. Venezuelans can make a killing by buying goods at below-market prices and smuggling them into Colombia for sale at higher prices.

Defenders of Venezuela's socialist government say price controls imposed by the late President Hugo Chávez help poor people lead more dignified lives, and the United Nations has recognised Venezuela's success in eradicating hunger.