aavishkaar
TRANSCRIPT
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