The Public Distribution System (PDS) is a social welfare programme which ensures food security by providing food grains at subsidized price to the society.

Following are some the key functions of PDS:

1. Procurement: The government procures food grains from farmer at Minimum Supporting Price (MSP) and sells these food grains to states at central issue prices.
2. Storage and Transportation: The procured grains stored in central godowns and transport it to state godowns.
3. Distribution: The state government distributes it beneficiaries through fair price shops at subsidized price.

Some of the challenges that faced by PDS are the following:

1. Leakages: One of the major challenges is that a significant portion of the food grains does not reach the eligible beneficiaries due to leakage.
2. Poor quality: The quality of food grains that PDS distributes is mostly poor.
3. identification of beneficiaries: The exclusion of eligible households and inclusion of ineligible households is a common problem that exist in PDS.

Some of the measures for improvement of functioning of PDS:

1. Biometric Authentication: By adopting Aadhaar based biometric authentication at fair price shops enable to ensure that only deserving beneficiaries acquiring affordable food grains.
2. Technology integration: By implementing end to end computerization at every step of the supply chain, PDS enable to curtail leakages and thereby ensure efficiency.
3. Improving storage facilities: Improving storage facilities is also significant to prevent wastage and spoilage of food grains.

Example

An example of an efficient PDS in India is Tamil Nadu. The state implement end to end computerization of each step of supply chain and it adopts the Aadhaar based biometric authentication which prevent leakage and ensure the deserving beneficiaries receiving the rice for free and other essential items including kerosene, sugar, wheat and pulses at affordable rate through fair price shops.

To sum up PDS is that system which built to ensure food security. By addressing these challenges and by implementing such measure the system can become more efficient.