INFORMATION AND COMMUNICAION

TECHNOLOGY

• Government reforms have

deployed ICT tools to make the • Computerization of SCM
distribution of food grain
transparent through modernization
of the TPDS delivery chain. • Online Allocation of Food
Grains to FPSs
• The activities involve use of ICT
tools for tracking of movement of
allocated food grains at multiple • Digitalization of Ration
stages i.e. from Food Corporation Cards
of India (FCI) godowns to
intermediary storage/ distribution
points and further to FPSs. • Transparency Portals
 End-to-End Computerization of the Supply Chain

• IMPLEMENTED IN 25 STATES/UTS
• Procurement, Storage, And Transportation of food grain are important points of leakage in the
TPDS.

• Until a few years ago, most states recorded transactions manually during these three processes.

• Computerization increases transparency and accountability by reducing fudging of entries at

various points in the supply chain.

• States such as Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu were among the first to embrace TPDS reforms;
Bihar adopted them later.

• According to World Bank estimates, in Bihar the leakage of food grain declined from
92.9 percent in 2004–05 to 29.1 percent in 2011–12.
 Online Allocation of TPDS Grain to FPSs:
• Implemented in all States/UTs except
UTs of Chandigarh and Puducherry
• In the past, FPS managers would have to
submit detailed accounts of all stock and
sales in the previous month to get the
next month’s allocation of food grain.
That process was not only cumbersome,
because of the hand-written accounts,
but also unreliable, because documents
often went missing.
• Many states have addressed the issue by
moving to the online allocation of food
grain to FPSs, requiring FPS managers
and district food officers to enter stock
and sales figures online to get future
allocations.
CHHATTISGARH became a front-runner in end-to-
end TPDS supply chain modernization when the
state government launched the Centralized Online
Real-time Electronic PDS (CORE PDS) in 2012. The
CORE PDS uses smartcards and point-of-sale devices
to track transactions between FPSs and
beneficiaries in real time. This system allows the
state food department to allocate food grain on the
basis of the actual distribution of food grain by each
FPS. In the previous system, the food department
had to rely on information provided by the FPS
dealers. Not only does the CORE PDS improve the
monitoring of food grain distribution to
beneficiaries, but it also allows beneficiaries to
choose the FPS from which to buy their food grain—
an innovation in benefit portability that encourages
competition among FPSs and helps beneficiaries
who are migrants. Indeed, FPS dealers can no longer
rely on guaranteed purchases from ration card
holders who are “attached” to their FPS. Fair price
shops must attract ration card holders by providing
efficient services and good-quality food grain.
 Doorstep Delivery of Food Grain to the FPS:

• More than 3.95 lakh of 5.33 lakh FPSs are automated

• Use of GPS Monitoring to Reduce Leakage Diversion of food grain to the open market during its transportation from
the warehouse to the FPS has been a major concern in TPDS implementation.

• In some parts of the country, FPS managers divert TPDS grain by informing beneficiaries that it never arrived.
Chhattisgarh addressed this problem by replacing private delivery trucks with yellow-painted government trucks.

• By taking responsibility for delivering the food grain, government officials made it their task to ensure that it reached
the FPS.

• More recently, many states have started using Global Positioning System (GPS) Technology to track the movement of
grain from warehouses to FPSs.

In Bihar, a Bangalore-based ICT company has designed software that allows

district and state officials not only to track the movement of trucks but also to
collect detailed information from each truck, including the weight of grain it is
carrying.
 Digitization of the Ration Card Database:

• Completed in all States/UTs. Details of 23.30 crore ration cards are available on
transparency portals of State/UTs

• Most states have made considerable progress in the digitization of their ration card
database.

• Digitization has been helpful in two respects:

– First, it increases transparency by making available an easily accessible database
– Second, it allows the government to apply other technologies, such as bar codes and biometric
smartcards, to remove bogus or “ghost” beneficiaries.

• A total of 2.98 crores ration cards have been deleted during the period 2013 to 2018.

• Presently, 85.37% seeding of Aadhaar number of the beneficiaries with their Ration
Cards have been done.
REFERENCES