MANTHAN PLUGGING THE LEAKS: IMPROVING REACH AND EFFICIENCY OF THE PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

Aavishkaar

Team Members:

1. Amal George Appadan

2. Harikrishnan R Varma

3. Malavika Gopalakrishnan

4. Meera K

5. Niranjan S Shenoy

Institution: Government Engineering College, Thrissur

TOWARDS BETTER PDS: MLCCC

WHAT IS PDS?

The PDS in India is an important

public invention for enhancing food

security. The PDS provides subsidized

food grains (and other commodities)

through a network of ‘fair price shops’.

Major commodities distributed include

staple food grains such as wheat, rice,

sugar and other commodities like

kerosene through ‘Ration shops’

established in several states across the

country. The Food Corporation of

India, procures and maintains the PDS.

According to a reliable survey, it has

been revealed that 91 million

households enjoy PDS. Right to food is

a basic human need, and is of top

priority, the reason why we chose this

topic.

THE PROCESS

Procurement of grains from farmers: The intervention of middle men prevents the effective reach of MINIMUM SUPPORT PRICE(MSP) to the farmers.

Storage of grains: Unhygienic conditions and inappropriate surplus management leads to food spoiling in a nation where millions go hungry everyday.

Transportation of grains: Improper tracking results in black-marketing and other malpractices.

Fair Price Shops: Low commissioning of goods prompts the dealers to indulge in corrupt ways such as overcharging and under weighing.

Beneficiaries: Unauthentic ration cards and its misuse leads to eligible beneficiaries from availing their rightful entitlements. Lack of awareness adds to this problem.

THE WAY IT ALL WORKS THE WAY IT ALL LEAKS

As long as humans exist, ensuring safe food to every empty stomach becomes the chief duty

of governments all over the world. The Public Distribution System, being one of the

organized means of reaching at a common man, should remain as corruption-free as

possible. As in every practical case corruptions at all levels overlap which in turn builds up

to become a real challenge to the system of democracy. This serious evil needs rectification

and checking at every levels of functioning. We propose the mechanism of ML3C which can

be summed up as :

Local governing

bodies directly

procuring grains from

farmers so that middle

men are kept aloof

Hygienic storage of procured grains at godowns to ensure safe and quality

food

Legal tagging of all goods reaching at Fair Price

Shops to check weight

leakages

GPS Tracking of loaded

trucks checks open

market diversion

Computerized register

maintenance ensures

transparency

AEFAS Card and

OVR System

integrate records in databases

and prevent

card misuses

MULTI LEVEL CORRUPTION CHECKING CHAIN – ML3C OR MLCCC

FARMER END PROBLEMS

As per the current execution strategies

of PDS, grains are procured from

farmers through middlemen and in

most cases the effective reach of the

declared Minimum Support Price

(MSP) is not ensured.

The graphs indicate the Govt policies to ensure MSP

to farmers.

Sometimes the support price is so low that

it can only attract low quality produce; the

rest goes to the open market. The Govt tries

to avoid this by upping the support price.

Even though the graph pretend to be a

liberal one to farmers, role of middlemen

leads them to sell in the open market.

• Middlemen corruption Wipe out the middlemen corruption by the direct procurement through Government agencies. • Inefficiency of Long Distribution Chain Food supplies go diverted at each stage of the process. If the local administration takes the charge of procurement (unless certain foods are not available in the locality) the ease of collection and distribution can be enabled.

TAGGING AND BARCODING

Item-level tagging is the tagging of individual products, is used to track individual items in order to better control inventory, by providing retailers with the ability to tag individual items on the retail floor. Tags ARE used to track pallets of merchandise, rather than individual items, through the supply chain. With the use of printed tags, retailers are now able to track inventory at the item level, scan the tag, and know the location . If they know where an item is at all times then it easier to move it to where it is supposed to be. By doing this we gain added shelf visibility and it drives down wasteful overstock.

Item-level tagging provides a quick, automated, cost efficient and accurate way to track inventory through the supply chain and in the retail environment. Benefits to item-level tagging include better visibility and control of inventory and an expansion of customer experience capabilities. Item-level tagging is critical in order to determine how much inventory is on the floor, what sizes and colors need to be restocked and what inventory is available in stock rooms.

*Issue of Surplus Management and

Hygienic Storage ---

After the safe procurement of grains

the hygienic storage at godowns

needs to be ensured with timely

monitoring of Health Department

and timely grain supply should be

made to check stacking of spoiled

products

GPS TRACKING

The idea is to implement a Real Time GPS Enabled Vehicle Tracking And Monitoring System in its stock transportation vehicle fleet. Apart from tracking the movement of the vehicle, the tracking system will also provide inputs on the fuel consumption and the distance covered by the vehicle. Besides streamlining the grain collection, the tracking system is expected to help the corporation to maintain a proper audit record of the expenses incurred in food supply and storage.

Improving the Efficiency: Going Computerization

Formation of a network integrating all rural and urban areas under one network is a solution to the inefficiency of

distribution. By keeping records for every stage, transparency can be maintained. Timely updation of so called Ration

Cards is a solution for the loss caused due to misrepresentations.

AEFAS OVR Computerization: The Akshaya Model

Computerization of PDS

Challenges

Lack of Electrification in Rural areas.

Illiteracy

Technical challenges.

New model

People can make use of Govt. offices like

Taluk office, Post Offices etc. for renewal and

updating.

Akshaya Model computer literacy programs.

Akshaya model Online facilitation centers.

Developments of elegant software.

As a successful model for computer-aided distribution access

system, the Akshaya Computer Mission of Kerala State

Government can be studied.

Basic accessing needs like Applications for Exams and jobs,

Railway Tickets are satisfied through these centers.

OVR

We propose a two fold system as a

solution which consists of:-

1. Aadhar Enabled Food

Assurance & Security Card

2. Online Visual Register

THE TWO FOLD SYSTEM For ensuring Transparency and Regular Updation

OVR-Online Visual Register

The Centralised monitoring system achieved through computerisation helps us in creating a database or what we like to call an Online Visual Register consisting of details of each and every product, Fair price shops and eligible beneficiaries . The main motive of this database is for all the data to be transparent to the common man so that he can be aware of what he is entitled to . Otherwise FPS owners can take advantage of them .By such a system he can ensure that he is getting his right quota from the FPS shops . Anyone can enter this register by making use of their AEFAS Card number as Login Id via internet . Also we will setup an SMS system so that people from places where even electrification haven't reached can make use of this system by SMS confirmation using their unique login id as specified above. As far as the officials are concerned all the details regarding tagging and tracking of products are also entered here so that they can keep a regular record and can identify where the leaks are coming from and proper measures can be taken to arrest such issues.

AEFAS CARD SYSTEM The time for renewal of our existing ration cards have come and gone. Most of the existing ration card doesn’t boast a high percentage of accuracy regarding the beneficiaries and reports have shown that more than 20 % of eligible beneficiaries are still in the APL list and so are not able to receive what they deserve . So we are introducing AEFAS- card or Aadhar Enabled Food Assurance and Supply Card which will work hand on hand with the OVR system . Availing of PDS commodities can only be done with AEFAS card when this whole system is implemented.

• A unique identification system interconnected with Aadhar Card in which all the details of a family is added including income total number of family members , where they are all right now etc.

• Mandatory Renewal of AEFAS Card once a year : Most of the beneficiaries even now use the same card which they used years ago. So they receive government facilities based on old data in which the details of already died people may be too present and this leads to the misuse of ration cards .So to take these all out of the equation we are proposing to impose a new rule that only AEFAS cards that are renewed once adhar can only avail the services .This Renewal of Data can be done with the help of authorised Local Government bodies and only in the presence of verified Income Affidavits and Proof of Address Certificates .

ML3C

Hygienic Grain

Storage at

Godowns

GPRS

Tracking of

Loaded

Trucks

Encouragement of

Women at

Fair Price Shops

Tagging of

Goods

Direct Grain

Procurement

from Farmers

Online Visual

Register (OVR)

maintenance

Aadhar

Enabled Food

Assurance and

Supply Card

(AEFAS Card)

Challenges and risks of the proposed model

Concept Risks

High MSP and procurement of the whole of produced grains is required.

Farmers unwillingness to sell their produce to Govt. agencies.

Involvement of middlemen and private sector lobbies.

Lack of interest among the common man in creating a computerized system based on cards.

Cooperation between different ministries.

Implementation Risks

Procurement , stocking and distribution more expensive through public sector than private agencies.

Comparatively high operational cost.

Computerisation of all PDS agencies including those in remote villages .

Awareness must be spread in a large scale.

Above all clear transparency in the system and a sincere effort to mitigate

corruption and leaks starting from individual level is required to make any system

including ours more effective and efficient.

References

Official website www.pdsportal.nic.in

Wadhwa committee report on public distribution system in

India.

Performance evaluation of Targeted Public Distribution

System (TPDS).

Report of the Task Force on an IT Strategy for PDS and an

implementable solution for the direct transfer of subsidy for

Food and Kerosene.

A Study on the Effectiveness of Public Distribution System

In Rural Tamil Nadu