Concerned over the “inefficient and corrupt” targeted public distribution system (TPDS), critical to the success of the proposed National Food Security Act, the government will ask the states to immediately plug its loopholes.
The TPDS, which consumes an annual subsidy of Rs 28,000 crore to provide rations to 6.5 crore BPL families, is plagued by black marketing and diversion involving a “vicious cartel of bureaucrats, fair price shop owners and middlemen”, defeating its very rationale.
As pressure builds up on the government to finalise the draft food security bill, a top priority of UPA and NAC chairperson Sonia Gandhi, the food ministry will ask the state food secretaries to suggest ways to revamp the TPDS during a two-day meet on June 21 and 22. The meet, to be addressed by food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, is likely to be attended by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, rural development minister C.P. Joshi and planning commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. All of them are part of an empowered group of ministers overseeing the food security issue.
Reforming the TPDS is a part of the draft food security bill, as the UPA chairperson wants an increase in the number of current beneficiaries, to include the vulnerable sections of society. “TPDS breeds corruption and has failed to help the poor. It should be dismantled,” said food policy analyst Devinder Sharma.
Sources said grains allocated for the poor by the Centre often get diverted to the open market leaving the BPL card holders with little choice but to buy the inferior quality food items available at the fair price shops.
The Supreme Court appointed central vigilance committee, said, “Corruption is all pervasive in the entire chain involved in the TPDS.”