eGov-June-2010-[22-23]-Revolutionising Public Distribution System

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Revolutionising Public Distribution System www.spancotele.com In terms of both coverage and public expenditure, the most important food safety net is the Public Distribution System (PDS). PDS provides rationed amounts of basic food items and other non-food products at below market price to consumers through a network of Fair Price Shops (FPS) spread all over the country. However, the food grains supplied by the ration shops are not enough to meet the consumption needs of the poor or are of inferior quality. The average level of consumption of PDS grains in India is only 1 kg per person / month. The PDS has been criticised for its urban bias and its failure to serve effectively the poorer sections of the population. The targeted PDS is costly and gives rise to a lot of corruption in the process of extricating the poor from those who are not poor. Despite the PDS, India accounts for over 400 million poor and hungry people. Numerous malpractices make safe and nutritious food inaccessible and unaffordable to many poor. Spanco, has emerged as a preferred ‘Government Transformation Service’ provider, its e-Governance Unit has been entrusted with the task of transforming the current supply and distribution chain into a technology driven system. Once complete; the new model will solve issues related to pilferage in transit – godown – ration shops, fake ration cards, manual transaction records, and unreliable data. Apart from revenue savings by state governments, this solution will directly benefit a large number of population living below poverty line (BPL) who cannot afford food grain in open market. The project covers the entire distribution network of FPSs spread across Talukas and district supply offices that reports to regional offices in State. Apart from the above, it is planned that all the Food and Civil Supplies (FCS) offices including HO, 22

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Divisional Offices and Taluka offices will be computerised and networked using MPLS/VPN broadband connectivity. A high-tech Data Center will be deployed which will connect with the rest of the department offices across a State. Current System Each FPS serves a few hundred households and the allotment for food and kerosene is done according to the number of ration cards. The sum of all the requirements of FPS in talukas is the procurement size of the state government from FCI. State government buys these food grains at market price and sells it through FPS at subsidised price incurring a deficit on the budget. The entire process is manual with no real time record of the actual distribution, beneficiaries and actual number of ration cards (excluding fake ration cards) leading to the situation

where: 1. Many retail shopkeepers have large number of bogus cards to sell food grains in the open market. 2. Many BPL families not able to acquire ration cards either because they are seasonal migrant workers or because they live in unauthorised colonies and a lot of families also mortgage their ration cards for money. Pilferage may occur at different levels in the distribution network. There is currently no automated system to track the total number of active ration cards in each FPS. Middlemen typically try to take advantage of this by procuring on the basis of the registered cards, which may not directly correlate with the actual number of active cards. The entire system needs tracking and efficient real time data to reach the core of the issue


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