Government provides people with basic food items and necessities at subsidised price through Public Distribution System(PDS)
DETAILED ANALYSIS OF PDS
History
1940 – Bengal Famine
1962 – Chinese war…food subsidy
1970 – universal through Fair Price Shops[FPS]
1992 – Revamped PDS
1997 – Targeted PDS
PDS Mechanism
Farmers [Production of foodgtrains]–> Central govt [aquired at MSP] –>FCI godown[Storage] –>[wholesale] –>State –> [wholesale] –>Fair Price Shops –>[retail sale] –>Consumers
Critical analysis PDS
1)Procurement phase
#skewd production : change in croping pattern due to PDS, water intensive rice and wheat is cultivated
eg : Kavery water issue
#Low quality of produce
2)Storage phase
#Food grains are stored in godowns for longer duration
#results in watage
3)Distribution
#Leakage during transport
#Diversion of trucks
4)Retail
#Exclusion errors
#Coding
#Black marketing
Reformation of PDS
1)Making MSP more inclusive
2)Infrastructure development
3)Improve storage infrastructure in FCI godowns
4)GPS enabled trucks
5)Computerisation in FPS
6)Biometrically Authenticated Personal Updates(BAPU) facility : eg – Krishna district case study
7)Digitisation of ration cards
8)Grievance redressal mechanism