SYNOPSYS ON PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM (PDS)

As we all know India is an agriculture based economy with around 26% of its population below poverty line (BPL). Many of these people are forced to sleep with hungry stomach due to their inadequate sources of income. The Public Distribution System (PDS) in the country facilitates the supply of food grains to the poor at a subsidized price . PDS is an important constituent of the strategy for poverty eradication and is intended to serve as a safety net for the poor whose number is more than 33 Crores and are nutritionally at risk. PDS is operated under the joint responsibility of the Central and the State Governments. The Central Government has taken the responsibility for procurement, storage, transportation and bulk allocation of food grains, etc. The operational details of the PDS differ from state to state. Though the policy of setting up of FPSs(Fair Price Shops) owes its initiation to national food policy, its implementation remains the direct responsibility of the state governments. In order to operate the PDS effectively, the Central Government issues guidelines from time to time to the states regarding the operational details of the PDS. The operational responsibilities including allocation within the State identification of families below poverty line, issue of ration cards, supervision and Monitoring the functioning of FPSs rest with the State Governments. The Food and Civil Supplies Department of the State Government is mainly entrusted with the task of monitoring PDS in the state. Under PDS scheme, each family below the poverty line is eligible for 35 kg of rice or wheat every month, while a household above the poverty line is entitled to 15 kg of food grain on a monthly basis Every year central government provides subsidy to meet the monetary differences between market price and FPSs price. In addition, the Central Government also procures food grains for meeting the requirements of buffer stock. However, doubts have been raised about the efficiency and costeffectiveness of the PDS, especially in the light of the growing food subsidy and food stocks. Planning Commission of India says For every Rs 4 spent on the PDS, only Rs 1 reaches the poor and 57% of the PDS food grain does not reach the intended people .

My study will be focused basically on identifying what are the major loopholes and what are the reasons behind those loopholes, and methodology to rectify those loopholes so that system can work efficiently and all required ones can be benefitted by it . Proper system study needs to be done for identification af all the requirements of system. A proper system should be made by which we can make the grains and other items like sugar and kerosene be easily available to required one and stopping hoarding ,black marketing ,adulteration ,system transparency and accountability issues. We can utilize proper technology to avoid problems like use of BOGUS cards and SHADOW cards to make system more efficient, mechanism should be placed to positively confirm and track the individual beneficiary off take on a monthly basis, the problems relating to PDS leakages, Transparency and Transportation would get resolved. A genuine data base of beneficiaries should be created and issue all the families Unique ID. Data base should contain ten finger biometrics and photographs of all family members to avoid all short of duplicities. For all this there will be required a software linking all the FPSs, FCI offices, whole sale points and data base. I will be looking to design basically what are the basic requirements of system and taking past into consideration what were the reasons for failure of system .