The Public Distribution System (PDS) has evolved as a system of management of scarcity through the distribution of food grains at affordable prices. It has the objective of providing food and nutritional security, stabilizing food prices, redistribution of food, and maintaining buffer stock.

However, the PDS in India has been beset with certain challenges, including:

• Bogus cards and ghost beneficiaries: Due to the ghost beneficiaries, grains are deflected to the open markets and sold at higher prices, which leads to the shortage of food grains for the deprived and vulnerable people. For instance, it was revealed in 2020 that nearly 22% of PDS cards in Chhattisgarh were found to be bogus (16 lakh PDS cards out of 72 lakh cards).
• Identification failures and denial of entitlements: Due to factors like poor quality of fingerprints, intermittent network, non-possession of the Aadhaar, or failure of biometric authentication, many deserving families do not get rations.
• Leakages: According to the NSSO (2011-2012), leakage in PDS is about 46.7 percent due to leakages of the food grains during transportation.
• Differentiated impact on married women: When a woman marries and leaves a qualifying household to join another, she must register on the new family ration card to ensure that she continues to receive food rations. However, doing so is a cumbersome process, which has left many women without access to subsidized food.

To address these issues, there has been a push towards digitizing the PDS over the last couple of years. The initiatives include linkage with the Aadhaar card and maintenance of digital records at Fair Price Shops.

These initiatives have led to the following impact on the Public Distribution System:

• Increased transparency: End-to-end computerization has resulted in increased efficiency and transparency of the distribution (allocation, inventory, tracking) as witnessed in Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Madhya Pradesh. Also, smart ration cards have features of data storage and check on counterfeiting. It is being implemented in Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
• Identification of rightful beneficiaries: Electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) devices are being installed at Fair Price Shops (FPSs) for the distribution of food grains through authentication and electronic record-keeping of the sale transactions. At present, out of 5.33 lakh Fair Price Shops (FPSs), about 5.07 lakh (95.0%) of FPSs have ePoS devices that confirm identification through biometric/Aadhaar authentication.
• Tracking: GPS is being used in tracking the movement of trucks from depot to FPS, thus providing a strict vigil on any diversion and leakage of food grains.
• Data collection and storage: IM-PDS and Annavitran portals that are parts of ‘One Nation, One Ration Card (ONORC)’ provide a central repository of all ration cards and beneficiaries’ data- portability. The Annavitran portal hosts the data on the distribution of food grains through E-PoS devices within a state.

Providing better connectivity, a faster network, installing more devices per shop, establishing additional call centers to address technical queries, analyzing the technology adoption behavior for improved policies, and promoting digital literacy can further help address the issues pertaining to the PDS.