1. The public distribution system was put into place by the government of India so that people of
our country could free themselves from the menace of hunger and poor health.
A huge infrastructure was put in place and a large chunk of the annual GDP is spent on this
public distribution of food and essentials.
During the years we have realized that our public distribution system has developed certain
loop holes. These are in the field of :
 Allocation of food grains
 Movement of food grains
 Storage of food grains
 Finance and licensing
 Regulation of fair price shop
 Grievance redressal

2.  Door to door survey of the people lying in the Below Poverty Line category has to be
done, with the help of govt. school teachers and NGO’s.
 This registration through out the country should be independent. It is not to be related
with the voter id card or the U-id, because we have to gauge out the income of the
people.
 From each house hold only the head of the immediate family should be registered.
 While the registration process is done it should make use of modern day finger print
scan and voice recognition technology.
 The whole database of the beneficiary should be present online for anyone to see.
We have to bring about certain systemic reforms to renew the rotten infrastructure of our
PDS. These could be:

3. Creation of New
Department
Public Private
Partnership
Use of Modern
Technology
Taking whole
Process Online

4.  Machine recognizable Smart Card should be brought in with the help of licensing
either the private sector or public sector companies, for at least a period of 10 years.
 The smart card should be given to only the head of the family and should have photo
of the member.
 All the food items like rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene should be issued only through
tis smart card, as per the monthly quota decided by the government.
 The head of the family has to be present at the time of the collection of the items from
the nearest fair price shop (FPS). If he is not there a voice recording of him has to be
brought to the shop which would be recognized by the machine.
 In case of death of the recipient , the death certificate of the diseased should be
produced and a temporary card would be issued. It would be replaced by the
permanent card within a month.

5.  SEPARATE DEPARTMENT FOR CENTER AND STATE - We have to put in place a
centralized monitoring unit in the center and each of the states in India. This unit would
have two divisions namely the:
 IT division
 Management Division
 Management division would look into the functioning of the PDS at ground level and IT
division would manage the data of the amount of supply, consumption, cost online.
 License of smart card making should be given to a big enough private or public sector
company.
 A separate license should be given to other companies to manufacture smart card
recognizing machines, to be places at the FPS.
 Computer centers with huge data handling capability have to be build up at the center
and state level. Dedicated team would be monitoring and updating it 24*7.

6.  There has to be presence of all the relevant information on the website like:
The details of the
beneficiaries
Monthly food
entitlement of each
family
Monthly food
allocations to each
FPS
Details about food
procurement and cost
incurred
Grievance
Redressal

7.  Clear state wise distribution of food and other resources has to be calculated and put
in place.
 It should be evenly divided between state and central government.
 Proper cold storage have to be build for the proper storage of food. Food should not
be stored in the open as we do right now.
 Adequate buffer stock should be made by the Food Corporation of India(FCI).
 If food is extra it should be open for sale in the open market, or export.
 Proper cleaning and sanitation facility have to be in place at the storage locations.
 There has to regular inspection of the storage facilities in 2 months or so.
 Private firm should be licensed to undertake and manage transportation of goods from
market to godown and godowns to FPS.

8.  A separate grievance handling department has to placed both at the central an state
level.
 A chief redressal officer should be designated for each state and at the center.
 The query or the problem of the complanent should be rectified within a set frame of
time.
Our country is a big country. We have got the world’s second largest population. We
have got a big population to feed. The Public Distribution System is the only one of its
kind system implemented in the world till now. Though it has made poorest of the
Poor self sufficient in food, it has certain flaws that need to be rectified.
We spend a lot of money on this ambitious project of ours, but that huge investment is
not put to proper use.

9. It has to be noted that according to the official figures, almost 57 % of the food does not
reach the intended people, most of it is either diverted or is black marketed. To check
such mal practices, we have to bring about certain systemic and several wide ranging
changes.
The ambition of e-governance our ex president dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, has to be realized
Soon to make every thing transparent in the eyes of the general public. Although, such
reforms require a huge amount of capital and resource investment, but to achieve long
term goal of food self sufficiency for the common man, it has to put in place.
India is a liberal economy, so the participation of the private sector along with the public
sector has to be encouraged. We need to abolish taxes for interstate transfer of food and
bring about several other reforms.
People have to accept accountability both in the government and private sector for the
proper implementation of this system.
Regular surveys have to be done to take into account the suggestions offered by the
public.
I do believe that if we work tirelessly, one day we will definitely achieve a full proof
Public Distribution System.