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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Grand plans for overhaul of PDS by Suman Chakraborti

Grand plans for overhaul of PDS by Suman Chakraborti

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published Published on Jun 22, 2011   modified Modified on Jun 22, 2011

The state food department has drawn up elaborate plans to develop the infrastructure of the public distribution system (PDS) following chief minister Mamata Banerjee's visit to Khadya Bhavan last week.

During the visit, the chief minister asked that a committee comprising trade union members be formed and that they come up with suggestions on how to improve the infrastructure of the PDS scheme and evict corruption from the system. A day after that, food minister Jyotipriya Mullick sat down with the union members to discuss the issue.

"The union members all agreed with the chief minister's view that the PDS system needs a thorough modernisation. We have chalked up a plan which will be submitted to the chief minister," Mullick said.

The food minister said that at present, the department does not have a computerised data bank system. "I sat down with industries and IT minister Partha Chatterjee along with officials of Webel and Wipro to discuss this matter. We will instal six computers in Khadya Bhavan and four fax machines. A monitoring and vigilance cell will also be set up to supervise the PDS system," said Mullick. It has also been decided that the food minister will sit with the unions at least once a month to discuss on the progress of the PDS.

A suggestions and complaint box is also being set up at Khadya Bhavan. Apart from this, every Monday, the food minister will hold a two-hour session with consumers and dealers to listen to their complaints and grievances.

The minister claimed that crores of fake ration cards are being circulated in the market and if this could be stopped, 1.4 crore more people could benefit from the PDS scheme and the huge amount of food that is getting sold in the open market could be controlled. The department is considering introducing digital ration cards, but it will take around Rs 181 crore to set up the requisite infrastructure. The system is both time-consuming and costly, officials said.

As of now, the department has already started running trials to distribute food from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns to distributors and from them, to dealers. "Till so far, the dealers used to collect food from the distributors' godowns. In the new system, the transportation cost will come down. Trial run has already been conducted in four blocks of South 24-Parganas where this process has been successful and now we are going to introduce this system in a full-fledged manner," Mullick said.

Also, the food department wants to introduce a special food package for the tea garden labourers of North Bengal. "I will visit the tea gardens in Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri this month to look into the matter," the food minister said.

The food department has already appointed one official in each of the three districts of Jangalmahal - Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore - for thorough inspection of how the PDS was conducted in the districts.

The shortage of staff in the food department in the city and districts is also another area of concern. The department will be working on the process to increase staff strength. According to present estimates, there is 56% staff shortage in the districts and 40% in the city.


The Times of India, 22 June, 2011, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Grand-plans-for-overhaul-of-PDS/articleshow/8944531.cms


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