{"id":52590,"date":"2019-09-26T18:44:58","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T13:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogadmin.forumias.com\/?p=52590"},"modified":"2019-09-26T18:44:58","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T13:14:58","slug":"7-pm-a-hundred-small-steps-pds-26th-september-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-a-hundred-small-steps-pds-26th-september-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"7 PM | A hundred small steps: PDS | 26th September, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Context:\n<\/strong>Restructuring\nPDS to meet goals of <strong>\u2018<\/strong>One Nation,\none Ration Card\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2018One nation-one ration card\u2019\nscheme:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The\ngovernment rolled out nation-wide portability for an estimated 23 crore ration\ncard holders by June 1, 2020.<\/li><li><strong>The key aim<\/strong> in introducing\nof nation-wide ration card portability under the National Food Security Act,\n2013 is to facilitate ration card holders lifting their foodgrains from any of\nthe 5.4 lakh fair price shops (FPS) of their choice, without needing to obtain\nnew ration card.<\/li><li><strong>The key focus<\/strong> of the scheme\nis ensuring that beneficiaries covered under NFSA are not denied their rations\nbecause of inter-state migration.<\/li><li>Currently,\nin four states i.e, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, and Maharashtra both\nintra-state and inter-state portability of ration card is being implemented. <\/li><li>Seven\nother states, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan and\nTripura are, at present, testing intra-state portability that would allow\nbeneficiaries to lift their quota of ration from any FPS store within that\nstate.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Need for one\nration card:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Migration:<\/strong> The mobility of\nthe poor inside the country for employment is quite complex and multifaceted. A\nmajority of poor households practice temporary or seasonal migration in India.\nThe&nbsp;Economic Survey&nbsp;2017 estimated that over nine million Indians\nchange their state every year.<\/li><li>Moreover,\nmost of the anti-poverty, rural employment, welfare and food security schemes\nwere historically based on domicile-based access and restricted people to\naccess government social security, welfare and food entitlements at their place\nof origin.<\/li><li><strong>Bargaining power<\/strong>: Given the\nquintessential low bargaining power associated with the fact of being a\nmigrant, the costs are generally steeper for migrant families.<\/li><li>One\nNation One Ration Card (ONORC), by doing away with duplication and\neligibility-related cost escalations, will benefit them significantly.<\/li><li><strong>Failure of\nlegislations:<\/strong>\nAlthough there are provisions under the Inter State Migrant Workers Act of 1979\nto register inter-state migrant workers, state governments have failed to\nregister such workers and create databases about them, either at source and\ndestination.<\/li><li><strong>Discrimination:<\/strong> the experience\nwith PDS depends considerably on the last node of delivery-the fair price shop\n(FPS). Across the three researched States Bihar, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh\nbeneficiaries complained about discrimination by the dealers, especially\nagainst women and in terms of providing quality services.<\/li><li>ONORC\nwill give the beneficiaries the opportunity to opt for the dealer of their\nchoice. If any dealer misbehaves or misallocates, the beneficiary can switch to\nanother FPS shop instantly. A study by\nresearchers at the Indian School of Business (ISB) found that over 25 per cent\nof Public Distribution System (PDS) beneficiaries in the Andhra Pradesh\n(interoperability at local level is in effect since October 2015) now use\nportability.<\/li><li><strong>Entitlement:<\/strong> There is\nwidespread denial of entitlement, with households not getting the quantity or\npaying the price that they are entitled to. ONORC can shift the bargaining\npower from the PDS dealer towards beneficiaries. ONORC lets the beneficiaries\nchoose the PDS shop that best delivers on the attributes.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Restructuring PDS: <\/strong>The State of\u00a0Aadhaar\u00a0Survey 2017-18 found that nearly 6.5 per cent of PDS beneficiaries in Rajasthan were denied ration because the shop owner claimed to be out of food grain. This translates to over 3.5 million people in Rajasthan alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prior to a roll out of nationwide\ninteroperability of ration cards, the government needs to focus on the\nfollowing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Ensuring\naccountability: <\/strong>As\nhappened in Rajasthan, a beneficiary has no mechanism to question whether the\nshop owner is telling the truth or diverting rations. There is need to redesign\nfundamental processes related to the PDS to empower every individual.&nbsp; <strong>Lessons from Andhra Pradesh:<\/strong> <\/li><li>The\nstate government collects feedback in real time through a mobile-based system. <\/li><li>The\ncentral government should use this opportunity to make PDS more user-centric. <\/li><li>It\nshould track denial of service on a real-time basis through mobile-based\nsurveys. <\/li><li>It\nshould commission research on the experiences of particularly vulnerable groups\nsuch as the elderly, migrants, disabled and tribals to modify the process where\nneeded. <\/li><li>It\nshould enable beneficiaries to track the amount of food at nearby ration shops\nusing their mobile phones.<\/li><li><strong>Strengthening\nOperational Backbone: <\/strong>States should be\nbrought together on a national platform that is based on the same technical\nstandards and can therefore interoperate so that portability works seamlessly\nacross states.&nbsp;The system should enable real time tracking of inventories\nand rapid response to low stock situations.<\/li><li><strong>Tackling Authentication Failures:<\/strong> Studies by Indian School of Business (ISB) in multiple\nstates point to a 1-3 per cent failure rate, potentially affecting 8-24 million\npeople at a national scale. To prevent denial of service, the government should\nensure availability of non-biometric means of authentication (such as OTP or\nPIN), as well as manual overrides.<\/li><li><strong>Addressing privacy concerns:<\/strong> While leveraging the power of Aadhaar for PDS, the\ngovernment should actively address privacy and exclusion risks that the use of\nAadhaar and a centralised PDS platform can lead to.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Conclusion:\n\u2018<\/strong>One Nation-One\nRation Card\u2019 has the potential to improve outcomes particularly for the\nsubaltern groups, like any delivery mechanism. However, the entire value chain\nof making the system work needs to be closely monitored and backed by\ninfrastructure. The government should\nstart by encouraging all states to roll out within-state portability. This will\nalso increase their operational and technical capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source:\n<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/public-distribution-system-one-nation-one-ration-card-scheme-modi-government-6029134\/\">https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/public-distribution-system-one-nation-one-ration-card-scheme-modi-government-6029134\/<\/a><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context: Restructuring PDS to meet goals of \u2018One Nation, one Ration Card\u2019. \u2018One nation-one ration card\u2019 scheme: The government rolled out nation-wide portability for an estimated 23 crore ration card holders by June 1, 2020. The key aim in introducing of nation-wide ration card portability under the National Food Security Act, 2013 is to facilitate&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-a-hundred-small-steps-pds-26th-september-2019\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">7 PM | A hundred small steps: PDS | 26th September, 2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":49370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-7-pm","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/7-PM.png?fit=1000%2C500&ssl=1","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704817679},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}