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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Robbing India's poorest: Study finds HALF the foodgrain meant for PDS is 'diverted' through errors or corruption -Neetu Chandra

Robbing India's poorest: Study finds HALF the foodgrain meant for PDS is 'diverted' through errors or corruption -Neetu Chandra

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published Published on Mar 4, 2014   modified Modified on Mar 4, 2014
-DailyMail.co.uk


It's the great gamechanger that didn't work.

The Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) launched in 1997 on the back of 72 lakh tonnes of foodgrain annually, with its focus on six crore of the nation's poorest.

It was touted as the dawn of a new era for India's food security, but remains riddled with leaks that gobble up to half the foodgrain routed through it.

Research conducted by Raghul Madhaiyan of the Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Sweden, and published in January this year, has criticised India's performance on food security, saying it has been "mediocre" and that it clearly reflects on the status of poor people in the country.

The Central government has already admitted that Tamil Nadu has a better implementation of PDS than other states because of the absence of TPDS.

The Uppsala University project has similarly compared the PDS in Tamil Nadu with the rest of the country and found the TPDS to be as sick as PDS.

"Pilferage and leakages at both Central and local levels have been huge concerns in proper delivering of foodgrain. In 1999-2000, around 10 per cent of rice and almost 49 per cent of wheat allotted for the PDS have been diverted. Between 1999 and 2005, the leakages from the PDS at the all India level increased from 24 per cent to 54 per cent. In 2007-08, the overall diversion of the PDS grains was 44 per cent," the report said.

The study has shown that states like Bihar and Punjab have witnessed abnormal leakage, i.e. more than 75 per cent, while states like Haryana, Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have high leakage, i.e. between 50 to 75 per cent.

Tamil Nadu, along with other states like Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Orissa and West Bengal, has less than 25 per cent leakage.

The study has said that exclusion errors like households that do not possess ration cards, poor households in possession of APL cards, and inclusion errors like the inclusion of non-eligible persons or people in the programme have left out genuine prospective beneficiaries.

"The major cause of this performance is the implementation of the Targeted Public Distribution System. This made the administration and operation of public distribution difficult and provided loopholes for the corrupt, which in turn led to the omission of deserving people from the welfare scheme," the project report said.

"As the PDS is the largest welfare scheme in the country, the consequences have been extremely bad. Significant parts of the population remain hungry. Inadequate infrastructure, lack of awareness, social stigmas and political indifference further obstruct the proper functioning of welfare schemes," it said.

The project report has recommended that the country should revert to the Universal Public Distribution System to make the scheme effective and meaningful.

"Performance factors of Tamil Nadu must be considered and included in the proceedings. Researches have to be performed to further strengthen the measures," it said.

Under the PDS system, households are entitled to specified quantities of select commodities at subsidised prices.

With policy reforms, the Central government formed the Targeted Public Distribution System, under which the beneficiaries are categorically divided into Below Poverty Line and Above Poverty Line families to make the food available to those who are really poor.

The PDS is implemented at the state level, and is the biggest of the Central government initiated welfare schemes that address food security - the others being Mid-Day Meal, Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and Food for Work.

 


DailyMail.co.uk, 2 March, 2014, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2571507/Indias-poorest-hungry-Study-finds-HALF-foodgrain-meant-PDS-diverted-errors-corruption.html


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