WHAT IS PDS?

Public Distribution System (PDS) is an Indian food security system which was established after the Great Bengal famine during the second world war.

Established by the Government of India under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution and managed jointly with state governments in India, it distributes subsidized food and non-food items to India's poor and stable selling price for farmers.

Major commodities distributed include staple food grains, such as wheat, rice, sugar, and kerosene, through a network of Public distribution shops, also known as Ration shops established in several states .

Over the years the PDS system has got so degenerated that there are periodic calls by the Government to streamline it. This is done by bringing in reforms to the PDS through ‘The Food Security’ bill.

Recently the ‘The Food Security’ was passed in the Lok Sabha on 26th August 2013 and it mainly aims at providing :-

1. Highly subsidized food grains to 67% population. 2. Fixed quota per grains allotted to different states. 3. Grains amounting 5kg/person/month. 4. Maternity benefits like free meal and Rs 6000 allowance. 5. Special privileges for children like free meals.

WHY WE NEED FOOD

SECURITY?

• Guarantees citizens legal right to food.

• Removes malnutrition by ensuring free food for children

To eliminate hunger

• Brings balance to BPL & APL families in terms of food grain access.

• Good quality commodities to all in subsidized rate. Universalization

• Children’s entitlement

• Pregnant and lactating women entitlement Entitlements

WHERE THE FOOD SECURITY

BILL FAILS?

The Food Security bill with its weak structure can be merely termed as a

Political Security bill or a Vote securing bill because of the following cons :-

1) Cost of this bill as projected by Govt (UPA) is 1.25 lakh crores which will

greatly impact current fiscal deficit.

2) system is prone to much corruption as number of beneficiaries is to be

decided at state level. Corrupt ministers can illegally hoard the grains and

make shortage of grains as an excuse.

3) With such high procurement of grains by govt , little will be left in open

market which will lead to demand-supply imbalance and can lead to rise in

prices and hence inflation.

4) As our major exports are of grains, FSB will hamper our exports, leading to

more Current account deficit. More CAD means more rupee fall, means more

expensive imports (sply oil used in transportation) , means more inflation.

5) Government will need to borrow high amounts from Banks to finance such

huge project. So, banks will be lending more to government, leaving less for

general public which will hamper private sector growth.

THE ALREADY PROPOSED

SOLUTIONS

Some of the solutions already proposed to overcome the

irregularities in the PDS systems are :-

1. Privatising the retail shop with the condition that they pay a

refundable deposit which can be recognized as a Public Deposit

Fund which in turn can be invested in high yielding securities. The

fund can be used to finance food subsidy and offer benefits to the

retailers.

2. An RSBY smart card to track unidentified household status and

ghost cards.

3. Scanner system at the retail shops to monitor buying and selling of

commodities.

WHAT WE PROPOSE

One of the major irregularities in the PDS system which is not reported is

the malpractices that take place in the commodities’ manufacturing unit.

Even if the Government sanctions a particular amount of good quality

commodities like rice and wheat to be sold in the ration shops, these

goods are often replaced by cheaper poor quality goods at the mill.

The actual good quality goods are hoarded by the middlemen and sold in

the open market at high prices and making immense profit.

Thus even if the recognized families are provided access to the

subsidized food grains, these are of lower quality and are possibly

adulterated.

What we propose is a system involving regular and timely checking and

quality testing of the food grains and other commodities at the main

storage area by experts.

Hence before selling to the customers the quality of the commodities are

ensured.

WHAT WE

PROPOSE(CONTD…)

Secondly we propose technological implementation to track the amount

and quantity of in-flow and out-flow of commodities from mills to storage

areas and from storage areas to retail shops.

Here, bar code or RFID tracking can be used to extract the product details

like quantity , quality, date of packaging of commodities and movements of

the products from the mill to the storage area.

For example, if rice needs to be stored in the godown to be sold at retail

shops, the jute bags containing rice bags can be tagged with bar code

label or RFID chip which can be scanned before sending it to the shop to

maintain a database of the product details.

Similarly at the retail shop, the shop keeper can sell the commodities to the

customers packed in a bar code labelled bag, so that the buyer is ensured

about the quality and amount of the product bought.

The aadhar card number (UID) of a person can be linked to the aadhar

card numbers of his family, so that a family is correctly provided with the

sanctioned amount of commodities, thus eliminating any chances of

malpractices from the consumer side.

The Process

TO SUMMARISE

REFERENCES

http://infochangeindia.org/agriculture/analysis/food-

security-bill-making-sense-of-the-numbers.html

http://www.rsinsight.com/pros-and-cons-of-food-security-

bill-2013-and-its-impact-on-indian-economy/

http://www.narendramodi.in/shri-narendra-

modi%E2%80%99s-7th-august-2013-letter-to-prime-

minister-on-nfso/

http://www.tehelka.com/exclusive-summary-of-the-

national-food-security-bill-2013/