The public distribution system was put into place by the government of India so that people of

our country could free themselves from the menace of hunger and poor health.

A huge infrastructure was put in place and a large chunk of the annual GDP is spent on this

public distribution of food and essentials.

During the years we have realized that our public distribution system has developed certain

loop holes. These are in the field of :

Allocation of food grains

Movement of food grains

Storage of food grains

Finance and licensing

Regulation of fair price shop

Grievance redressal

Door to door survey of the people lying in the Below Poverty Line category has to be

done, with the help of govt. school teachers and NGO’s.

This registration through out the country should be independent. It is not to be related

with the voter id card or the U-id, because we have to gauge out the income of the

people.

From each house hold only the head of the immediate family should be registered.

While the registration process is done it should make use of modern day finger print

scan and voice recognition technology.

The whole database of the beneficiary should be present online for anyone to see.

We have to bring about certain systemic reforms to renew the rotten infrastructure of our

PDS. These could be:

Creation of New Department

Public Private Partnership

Use of Modern Technology

Taking whole Process Online

Machine recognizable Smart Card should be brought in with the help of licensing

either the private sector or public sector companies, for at least a period of 10 years.

The smart card should be given to only the head of the family and should have photo

of the member.

All the food items like rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene should be issued only through

tis smart card, as per the monthly quota decided by the government.

The head of the family has to be present at the time of the collection of the items from

the nearest fair price shop (FPS). If he is not there a voice recording of him has to be

brought to the shop which would be recognized by the machine.

In case of death of the recipient , the death certificate of the diseased should be

produced and a temporary card would be issued. It would be replaced by the

permanent card within a month.

SEPARATE DEPARTMENT FOR CENTER AND STATE - We have to put in place a

centralized monitoring unit in the center and each of the states in India. This unit would

have two divisions namely the:

IT division

Management Division

Management division would look into the functioning of the PDS at ground level and IT

division would manage the data of the amount of supply, consumption, cost online.

License of smart card making should be given to a big enough private or public sector

company.

A separate license should be given to other companies to manufacture smart card

recognizing machines, to be places at the FPS.

Computer centers with huge data handling capability have to be build up at the center

and state level. Dedicated team would be monitoring and updating it 24*7.

There has to be presence of all the relevant information on the website like:

The details of the beneficiaries

Monthly food entitlement of each

family

Monthly food allocations to each

FPS

Details about food procurement and cost

incurred

Grievance Redressal

Clear state wise distribution of food and other resources has to be calculated and put

in place.

It should be evenly divided between state and central government.

Proper cold storage have to be build for the proper storage of food. Food should not

be stored in the open as we do right now.

Adequate buffer stock should be made by the Food Corporation of India(FCI).

If food is extra it should be open for sale in the open market, or export.

Proper cleaning and sanitation facility have to be in place at the storage locations.

There has to regular inspection of the storage facilities in 2 months or so.

Private firm should be licensed to undertake and manage transportation of goods from

market to godown and godowns to FPS.

A separate grievance handling department has to placed both at the central an state

level.

A chief redressal officer should be designated for each state and at the center.

The query or the problem of the complanent should be rectified within a set frame of

time.

Our country is a big country. We have got the world’s second largest population. We

have got a big population to feed. The Public Distribution System is the only one of its

kind system implemented in the world till now. Though it has made poorest of the

Poor self sufficient in food, it has certain flaws that need to be rectified.

We spend a lot of money on this ambitious project of ours, but that huge investment is

not put to proper use.

It has to be noted that according to the official figures, almost 57 % of the food does not

reach the intended people, most of it is either diverted or is black marketed. To check

such mal practices, we have to bring about certain systemic and several wide ranging

changes.

The ambition of e-governance our ex president dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, has to be realized

Soon to make every thing transparent in the eyes of the general public. Although, such

reforms require a huge amount of capital and resource investment, but to achieve long

term goal of food self sufficiency for the common man, it has to put in place.

India is a liberal economy, so the participation of the private sector along with the public

sector has to be encouraged. We need to abolish taxes for interstate transfer of food and

bring about several other reforms.

People have to accept accountability both in the government and private sector for the

proper implementation of this system.

Regular surveys have to be done to take into account the suggestions offered by the

public.

I do believe that if we work tirelessly, one day we will definitely achieve a full proof

Public Distribution System.