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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | PM’s panel suggests per person PDS allocation by Ravish Tiwari

PM’s panel suggests per person PDS allocation by Ravish Tiwari

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published Published on May 2, 2011   modified Modified on May 2, 2011
The Prime Minister-appointed panel on Food and Public Distribution System (F&PDS) headed by Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia has suggested that the current system of distributing PDS foodgrain per household should be replaced with per capita allocation.

According to National Sample Survey (NSS) data, lower income households have more members per family than higher income households, the panel has said in its draft report.

Justifying its suggestion as a “progressive step” that will benefit poor households, it said: “The grain entitlement may be converted from a per household to a per individual monthly entitlement.”

The panel — which had the chief ministers of Chhattisgarh and Assam as its members along with the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council chairman C Rangarajan — has said that the 6.52-crore ration card cap fixed by the government on the basis of 1993-94 poverty estimates resulted into lower per family foodgrain availability.

Consequently, it has asked the government to notify the revised BPL figures based on latest poverty estimates of the Planning Commission “at the earliest”.

The draft report has appended the statewise poverty figures based on the Tendulkar Committee report, which it says has been “accepted by the Planning Commission”.

According to those figures, the government should provide additional foodgrain to at least about 44 million more below poverty line people if it goes by the per capita availability norm.

As per the annexures, in all the Centre should make available cheap foodgrain to at least 407.61 million people in states based on the Tendulkar Committee estimates of the 2004-2005 NSS survey.

But the Central government has been allocating foodgrain to about 363.9 million BPL people, and that too on 1993-94 poverty estimates.

Accordingly, if the Census 2011 figures are taken into account, about 450.19 million BPL people would be eligible for cheap foodgrain if the Tendulkar Committee estimate of 37.2 per cent poverty is followed.

With the government planning to bring in a food guarantee law soon, the suggestions of this panel may re-define the basis of food guarantee at the individual level.

In this context, the panel, which was Constituted by the Prime Minister in April last year, has said the per capita entitlement will “enable food security benefits to be inextricably linked to the UID”.

In fact, the draft report has suggested a “next generation smart card system” where the subsidy amount to each individual will be “loaded into the smart card” through which the beneficiary can buy a set of items “such as wheat, rice, eggs, meat, pulses from any FPS (fair price shops) or designated retail outlets”.

Under this system, leakages during transportation and storage of foodgrain will be minimised as the beneficiaries will have subsidy cards that they can use at any retail outlet or PDS shop.

The recommendations of this panel is likely to be put up for consideration during the chief ministers’ meeting that may be held later this month.

The Indian Express, 2 May, 2011, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/pms-panel-suggests-per-person-pds-allocation/784396/0


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