The government proposes to outsource the work of identification of below poverty line families for providing highly subsidised foodgrains to the private sector or renowned non-government organisations.
Besides, it plans to facilitate the convergence of various foodgrain-based welfare and poverty-alleviation schemes to ensure a more equitable distribution of subsidised food.
The other proposals to spruce up the functioning of the targeted public distribution system include involvement of NGOs and self-help groups in running fair price shops, improving the economic viability of the FPS and a strict monitoring of the food sales through these shops by district food department officials, or NGOs.
These proposals will be put before the meeting of the state food secretaries scheduled for September 17 for seeking endorsement by the states. A good deal of spadework has already been done on this count in the meetings food secretary S K Tuteja has recently been holding with state officials. The all-India food secretaries' meet will be inaugurated by Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar.
At present, highly subsidised foodgrains are issued to people in the BPL category under the TPDS, the Antyodaya Ann Yojana, the Sampoorna Gramin Rojgar Yojna, the mid-day meal scheme and various other central and state level social security and employment generation programmes. Many of the beneficiaries are common in these schemes.
The food ministry has discovered that the TPDS is not a cost-effective system of food distribution in its present form. Its malfunctioning has resulted in the unabated increase in annual food subsidy from merely Rs 2,450 crore (Rs 24.5 billion) in 1990-91 to Rs 17,494 crore (Rs 174.94 billion) in 2000-01 and further to Rs 25,160 crore (Rs 151.6 billion) in 2003-04.
The extent of bogus ration cards can be gauged from the fact that over 22.32 crore (223 million) ration cards are currently in circulation, against the total households of 18.03 crore ((180 million), according to the ministry sources. Similarly, though there are only about 6.52 crore (65 million) families falling in the BPL category, over 8 crore (80 million) BPL ration cards have been issued by the state governments.
About 1.5 crore (15 million) poorest of the poor families covered under the AAY are getting 35 kgs of foodgrains every month at a specially reduced price of Rs 2 a kg for wheat and Rs 3 for rice.
Though the process of identification of these beneficiaries will be fine-tuned, there is no proposal to revise the retail issue prices of foodgrains under this scheme, the ministry sources maintain. The Centre has received a large number of complaints about errors of omission and commission in identification of BPL and AAY families.
The commissioners appointed by the Supreme Court to look into this aspect have also corroborated these malpractices. This has necessitated outsourcing the identification work to the private parties or reputed NGOs. The states will also be asked to cancel the bogus cards.
The views of the states will be sought in the forthcoming food secretaries' meet on the possibility of supplying fortified wheat flour (atta) through the PDS to improve the nutritional security of the poor people.
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