DINESH KUMAR

BA0140015

PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM IN TAMILNADU

This project explains about the following:-

Public Distribution System is an Indian food security system. Established by the Government
of India under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution and managed
jointly with state governments in India, it distributes subsidized food and non-food items to
India's poor.

The origin of Public Distribution System in India dates back to the Second World War period.
At the start of the Second World War in 1939 when shortages of various essential
commodities were anticipated and the State had an obligation to maintain supply lines for the
conduct of the war while, at the same time, supplying essentials to the citizens

The importance of this is that , it is considered to be the most important food security
network. However the food grains supplied by the ration shops are not enough to meet the
consumption needs of the poor or are of inferior quality.

The PDS in its original form was widely criticized for its failure to serve the below poverty
line (BPL) population. this Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), each poor family
was entitled to 10 kg of food grains per month at specially subsidized prices. This was
expected to benefit about 60 million poor families.

Measures for effective pds system are Implementation of Nine point Action Plan such as
Review of BPL, AAY, leakage free distribution, involvement of PRIs, door delivery to FPS,
Transparency ,Concurrent Evaluation of TPDS,Adoption of Revised citizens charter,New
technologies for tracking of vehicles,Display of Identities on vehicles,Monthly certifications
by vigilance committees / Panchayats.

Implementations like Exact number of population must be known by the government so that
exact amount of food can be provided.Ration card should be renewed after every one year or
in a minimum possible time so that the information about the family members can be
updated.Vigilance squad should be strengthened to detect corruption, which is an added
expenditure for taxpayers.Personnel-in-charge of the department should be chosen locally.

The failiures are Generally, the consumers get inferior food grains in ration shops. Many FPS
dealers resort to malpractice since they acquire little profit. There is also no clarity as to
which families should be included in the BPL list and which excluded. This results in the
genuinely poor being excluded whilst the ineligible get several cards.