Janjivan Bureau
New Delhi: The government is looking at fortifying wheat, rice and other grains being given through the Public Distribution System to cater to the nutritional security of nearly two-third of the country’s population.
Food and consumer affairs minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Monday that his ministry has chalked out plans for supplying fortified wheat and rice flour via PDS. “I have asked my department to look into fast-tracking the matter.”
He said his ministry in talk with stakeholders on supplying nutritious food in a cost-effective manner through the PDS.
According to the Food Security Act, passed in 2013, every person is entitled to 5kg subsidised foodgrains per person every month at `1-3/kg. The total number of people enrolled under this scheme across the country is 23.3 crore.
Though the Act was implemented in 2013, only 11 states had rolled it out, Mr Paswan said adding that in the last three years, all states have been enrolled in it.
He also said that the Centre is linking ration cards to Aadhaar to weed out bogus ration cards. “A total of 2.33 crore ration cards have been deleted or cancelled.”
He said at present, there are over 20 lakh tonnes of pulses in the buffer stock, adding that the problem now is how to distribute it. He also said the production of pulses has gone up this year and farmers are not getting the right price. However, the higher output has helped retail prices cool down.
Paswan said as an outcome of digitization of Ration Cards beneficiary records, de-duplication due to Aadhaar seeding, transfer/migration/deaths, change in economic status of beneficiaries and during the run-up to and implementation of NFSA a total of 2.75 crore ration cards have been deleted/cancelled. Based on this the Government has been able to achieve Rightful Targeting of Food Subsidies of about Rs 17,000 Crore per annum.
Releasing of Central Assistance: In 2016-17, Rs. 2500 crore and in 2017-18, Rs. 4500 crore were released to State Governments as Central assistance to meet the expenditure incurred on intra-State movement of foodgrains and fair price shop dealers’ margins.
Direct Benefit Transfer (Cash): “Cash Transfer of Food Subsidy Rules, 2015” were notified on August 21, 2015 under which food subsidy is directly credited to the account of the beneficiaries. At present Chandigarh, Puducherry and Dadra & Nagar Haveli are implementing this scheme. The Department of Food & PD is making systematic progress towards cash transfers of food subsidy. Recently, the Department of Food & PD and World Food Program jointly launched a Handbook to guide the States in implementation of cash transfers of food subsidy.
Aadhaar Seeding in PDS: To weed out duplicate/in-eligible/bogus ration cards and to enable rightful targeting 83.41% i.e. about 19.41 crore ration cards (as on 29th May, 2018) have been Aadhaar seeded. Under Section-7 of the Aadhaar Act 2016, the Department has notified the use of Aadhaar to receive subsidized foodgrains or Cash transfer on 08th February, 2017.
Automation of Fair Price Shops: On the basis of pilots and learnings from the States/UTs, in November, 2014 Department of Food & Public Distribution prescribed the guidelines and specifications for use of PoS at FPS. At present 3,16,600 FPSs (as on 29th May, 2018) out of 5,27,930 have PoS.
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