Learning from each other

It is not often that the government accepts the report of a committee promptly without detailed scrutiny. But an exception has been made – and with good reasons – in respect of the report of the task force on reforming the public distribution system (PDS). The committee, headed by Unique Identification Authority of India Chairman Nandan Nilekani, has made several valuable recommendations that can cure some of the critical ills of the PDS. However, the implementation of these recommendations may pose some practical problems. It is noteworthy that the committee has sought to rely on the power of information technology (IT) to plug loopholes in the PDS. Going further, it has offered the beneficiaries the choice to select the PDS outlet and choose the mode of receiving supplies, in kind or cash, in a fully computerised PDS system. To curb rampant pilferage and diversion of supplies, the task force has suggested movement of commodities at market prices till the sale point and tracking the course of their movement through the global positioning system. It has also, notably, sought to address the issue of fake and duplicate ration cards by using biometric-linked identity numbers, Aadhaar, as the basis for identification of the beneficiaries.

Though all these are well-intentioned measures, there is a potential downside to the report. The mechanism suggested to put these prudent suggestions into practice – that is, by creating a National Information Utility or PDS Network (PDSN) as a non-profit company with a chief executive officer (CEO) as a back-office for the union ministries concerned and all state governments – may give rise to functional problems by creating a new entity duplicating efforts made by existing institutions playing a similar role. Besides, end-to-end computerisation of a system as massive as the Indian PDS (comprising millions of grain purchase centres, storage points and over 462,000 fair price shops) is bound to take a good deal of time. Issuing biometric Aadhaar cards to nearly 180 million eligible families, too, is challenging and time-consuming. Besides, such a move would entail huge costs that the Nilekani panel has chosen not to reflect on. Nor has it suggested ways and means of meeting these costs by the Centre and state governments. In fact, the proposed portability of entitlements, although ideal for introducing competition and preventing malpractices at the ration shop level, presupposes the existence of more than one outlet in an area, which most often is not the case. This may, therefore, necessitate further expansion of the network, which may incur additional costs and cause further delays. Of course, the Nilekani panel has done well to take notice of the ongoing process of computerisation and PDS reforms in several states, notably Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh. It has, therefore, left it to the states to either adopt the IT-enabled distribution model mooted by the task force or pursue their own plans. Since running the PDS is essentially the obligation of the state governments and the Centre’s roleis limited to procuring and allotting the supplies, it would be worthwhile to let the states study the successful PDS reform exercises undertaken by others and adopt what seems suitable for their local conditions. This would help save time, which would otherwise be needed for the incubation of new PDS models through pilot projects.