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Food for thought: The PDS saga-CJ Punnathara

In the mid-eighties there was a rumour which later turned out to be true: US livestock were being fed with foodgrains in order to ensure better quality of their meat. Later it proved to be corn and not fine cereals like wheat and rice.

The Indian intelligentsia was appalled and indignant: How come cows and buffaloes were fed with grains while millions of people continued to live below the poverty line and starvation deaths common.

Things seem to have come a long way since those dreadful days. Now, poultry in India are being fed with foodgrain while millions of people still live below the poverty line and starvation deaths persist!

THE POVERTY LINE

Padmini, a native of Chertala Taluk in Kerala says that she gets more than enough foodgrains to feed her family at subsidised rates of Re 1 to 2 per kg. So she sees no harm in feeding the excess grain to household chicken and ducks. After all, eggs, chicken and duck fetch substantially higher value at the market.

Moreover, it would be far more expensive to buy rice-brawn and coarse cereals which were fed to the poultry earlier.

While the political masters are deliberating the prudency and expediency of the newly revised poverty line, millions like Padmini have no doubt crossed the invisible line which divides the poor from the rich in India. Suffice to say that it has been a feat without parallel in Indian economic history. A feat, more remarkable than India's tryst with liberalisation programmes.

Despite all the success stories about India's green revolution and self sufficiency in foodgrain production, per capita availability of cereals stagnated around the 400 gram mark during the past 50 years. Productivity had marched ahead. Foodgrain production had tripled. But for occasional vagaries of weather and wild swings in production there was nothing substantially wrong with India's food production.

The visible signs of prosperity both in India's rural heartland and urban sprawls are real. These signs meant that India's poor were consuming more. Per capita foodgrain availability should have zoomed. But that has not been the case.

FOODGRAIN PRODUCTION

The country's food production has been virtually doubling every 15 years. During the last 50 years, foodgrain production more than tripled: no small achievement. But the population has also more or less tripled. The net result was stagnation in India's per capita food availability.

What is the magic behind the visible signs of prosperity, better living standards and millions of people moving out of poverty while the per capita availability had remained stagnant? The answer lies in the large number of welfare programmes initiated by the Government as well as the often reviled public distribution system.

While the population and foodgrain production increased three fold, the volume of foodgrains distributed through PDS rose close to 11 times during the past four decades.

Even if 50 per cent of the grains did not reach the target population, access to foodgrains by the poor at affordable prices zoomed. This is why the PDS must be strengthened and expanded, in reach and depth.

MAKING AN IMPACT

Based on the National Sample Survey data for 2004-05 and 2009-10, a study by Jean Dreze and Reetika Khera said that diversion of foodgrains from PDS has come down from 54 to 41 per cent – a 13 percentage point fall.

The study said that “diversion rates (from PDS) declined in almost every State, with big improvements in some States: down from 23 per cent to 8 per cent in Andhra Pradesh, from 85 to 47 per cent in Jharkhand, from 76 to 30 per cent in Orissa, and from 52 to 11 per cent in Chhattisgarh.” Yet, the diversion remains huge by any standards.

A sample survey conducted later by student volunteers found that the extent of diversion had come down to 16 per cent. While overlooking the wide disparity between these findings and the reasons behind them, the conclusion seems to be the same: significant fall in diversion of foodgrain from PDS.

There can be no doubt that despite its inherent weaknesses, corruption and red tape, public distribution system has helped to mitigate poverty effectively in several States. In the early years, much of the distribution through the PDS was with imported grains.

While the Government was able to procure only 0.5 million tonnes of foodgrains in 1961, four million tonnes was distributed through PDS.

By 1971, over 87 per cent of the PDS distribution was from foodgrains procured within the country and later by 1981, it had become 100 per cent. The dependence on imports to feed India's millions had ceased and the country became self sufficient in food production. Then, the “problem of plenty” started.

While distribution through PDS rose over the years, it was not able to absorb all the procured foodgrains. From the 100 per cent levels of the eighties, PDS could lift only 60-70 per cent of the procured grains by the turn of the century. Mountains of foodgrains began to pile up and rot at the Government-run Food Corporation of India warehouses. The buffer stock limits were far exceeded.

This is when the State Governments came to the rescue. Walking the talk on poll promises, several State Governments began to distribute rice and wheat at far more subsidised rates of Re 1 and Rs 2 per kg. The offtake of foodgrains from the PDS rose from a paltry 13.2 million tonnes in 2001 to 43.7 million tonnes in 2010.

In pursuit of political goals, development became the magic mantra of several State Governments and PDS became the poster boy for social security programmes. PDS was no longer an anathema to politicians.

Earlier, there was sufficient foodgrains across the country, but the poor were priced out of the system. The sloth in PDS ensured that much of the foodgrains was diverted to the middle class and rich who had better purchasing power. The middle men made millions. Foodgrains were left to rot in Government godowns.

But things are now definitely improving. And per capita availability is becoming a reality for millions of India's poor.

(This article was published on April 8, 2012)