CHANGE AGENDA
Planning Commission suggests reforms to plug leakages in PDS…..SANGEETA SINGH
Planning Commission suggests reforms to plug leakages in PDS…..SANGEETA SINGH
The Planning Commission has suggested reforms aimed at plugging leaks in the public distribution system (PDS), which aims to provide subsidized food to the poor.
India’s apex planning body’s suggestions include switching over to a system in which fair- price shops receive and sell grain from the government’s central procurement agency, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) at a price linked to the minimum support price (MSP).
India’s apex planning body’s suggestions include switching over to a system in which fair- price shops receive and sell grain from the government’s central procurement agency, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) at a price linked to the minimum support price (MSP).
It has also suggested that the poor be given a wider choice by allowing them to use smart cards not just at the fair price shops they are assigned to, but at any of them. They should be able to buy not just grain but also edible oil, pulses, sugar and eggs, it recommended.
To incentivize farmers, it has suggested subsidies be used to allow them to buy grain they are not producing.
The commission has suggest- ed doing all this using options that use smart cards and the government’s unique identifi- cation programme.
These changes, when adopted in full, will help reform the PDS drastically. Reforms do not mean abolition of procure- ment and PDS but improve- ment in the delivery system, said a commission official who did not want to be identified.
Currently, grain is bought from farmers at the MSP by FCI, sent to state agencies, which then distribute it through fair price shops to 65.2 million families at subsidized rates.
According to Planning Com- mission deputy chairman Mon- tek Singh Ahluwalia, only around 50% of the money spent on PDS reaches the poor. Cur- rently, only wheat, rice, sugar and kerosene are available through 500,000-odd fair price shops.
The suggestions come at a time when the government is planning to implement its am- bitious food security legisla- tion. These ideas were suggested to the National Advisory Coun- cil (NAC) by the Planning Com- mission on 8 September since the aim is to benefit a larger number of poor with given re- sources, said the official cited above.
NAC, headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, is the main body that is steering the implementation of the food se- curity Bill with the help of the Planning Commission.
NAC recently proposed two options for a universal PDS.
The first, initially for India’s 150 poorest districts, would of- fer 35kg of rice and wheat at `3 for 80% of the families in rural areas and 33% in urban areas.
In the remaining districts, fam- ilies below the poverty line and above it will be allotted foodgrain at different quanti- ties and rates.