Effectiveness of public distribution system

Abstract

“It’s been three years since I’ve migrated to Bangalore in search of a work. I still don’t have a ration card here. I have to pay market prices and get food grains from shops in the locality, but I cannot afford that” says Mr Narayana migrant construction worker living in Billekahalli, Bangalore who has just two square meals a day and skips meal on weekends when he doesn’t get daily wages. The Public Distribution system which was once faced with Demand-Supply issues is now faced with heavy unclaimed food grains wasted in central godowns on one hand and people like Narayana on the other hand who still do not have access to affordable food. The recent Food security bill and the Lokayukta report also point to the immediate concerns about the issues with Public Distribution System which makes welfare schemes reaching to the target BPL families still a distant mirage for genuine Government policy makers. The scope of the study is narrowed to Karnataka and in specific to few regions in Bangalore. While the evolution of PDS in India shows how the Government has been continuously putting efforts to reach the poor – from Revamped PDS to Targeted PDS to Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) – the Government has ranked well in identifying issues with PDS and suggesting recommendations to overcome those issues. However, it has ranked poorly when it comes to successfully implementing those schemes. Despite efforts to reach the poor and ensuring that sufficient systems are in place, large scale corruption has led to inefficiencies in the system. As a result, the PDS scores well in terms of evaluation (when evaluated using the EEA framework) on paper, but in practise the system is inefficient. Contrary to our popular belief some of our findings pointed out that people often appreciated the quality of the food grains being supplied in the FPS. However, certain beliefs like customer apprehension to talk about hoarding, FPS dealers being rude to customers who enquire about hoarding or about the lack of proper information still remain proved. Various solutions have been put forth by researchers, which are currently under review or in test phase, like the GPS system to track inventory and community ownership to run fair price shops. The feasibility and effectiveness of such systems would be evident in course of time. Through our field visits and interviews with various stake holders in the system, we have identified certain scope for improvements like suggestions on shop operating frequency and timings, distributing food grains in installments to aid better purchasing by BPL families, better use of the shop space to aid financial viability of FPS dealers and better communication systems to overcome information asymmetry etc.