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A huge survey on the Public Distribution System (PDS) and other government schemes aimed at improving food security in India throws up some disquieting facts. Among them, that the much-touted food-for-work programme has managed to reach just 2.7% of rural households
The Indian government’s attempts to provide food to the poor at subsidised rates, and to assure them other nutritional benefits have been a resounding failure if one were to go by data thrown up by a new survey on the country’s Public Distribution System (PDS) by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). The survey, ‘Public Distribution System and Other Sources of Household Consumption, 2004-05’, carried out in 2004-2005, appears to bear out criticism of the government’s food security initiatives and the PDS system, as well as India’s poverty indicators. Among the key findings of the mammoth survey, published recently, over half (51%) of rural households with the smallest landholdings (less than 0.01 hectares) do not possess ration cards that entitle them to monthly rations of rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene under the PDS. Meanwhile, the government’s landmark food-for-work programme has managed to reach just 2.7% of rural households. In rural India, the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) benefited only 5.7% of rural households; the midday meal scheme reached only 22.8% of households. Likewise, the Annapoorna scheme, aimed at providing food security to senior citizens who are not covered by the National Old Age Pension Scheme, covered just 0.9% of rural households. On the other hand, 77%-80% of rural households that own relatively large landholdings (over four hectares of land) either owned a ration card or had access to other government-distributed rations. And households with medium landholdings (0.01 hectares to 0.04 hectares) comprised the highest proportion of BPL (below the poverty line) and Antyodaya card owners, 32% and 4% respectively. Also, strangely, other backward classes (OBCs) own 42% of BPL cards in rural areas, and 35% in urban areas. “What is shocking is that only 40% of rural BPL households have BPL cards, while non-BPL households possess the rest. This shows that a fair process has not been followed in distributing BPL cards,” said chief statistician Pronab Sen in response to the survey findings. At the all-India level, 81% of rural households and 67% of urban households possessed ration cards, the survey found. This means that 18.7% of households in rural areas and around 33.1% of households in urban areas did not have access to the PDS. The NSSO survey also revealed that only 26.5% of rural households and 10.5% of urban households held BPL cards. Worse, less than 3% of rural households were Antyodaya card holders, provided to the extremely poor under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana Scheme, and less than 1% of urban households had them. A telling comment on the efficacy of the PDS is that while the government has given out 6.52 crore BPL cards, there are still rural households that do not have the cards largely in the relatively backward states of Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. The survey showed that coverage under the PDS was lowest in Orissa, where 33% of rural households did not have ration cards. The percentage of PDS coverage in urban areas was as high as 58%. Scheduled caste households in rural areas fare no better than marginal farmers -- about 22% of them avail of BPL card facilities, which is about five percentage points more than their share in the country’s population. In urban areas, only 16% own BPL cards. As for Antyodaya cards, around 5% of scheduled tribe households and 4.5% of scheduled caste households in rural areas have Antyodaya cards, compared to just 2% of OBCs. “This shows that despite reservations for SC and STs, the majority in the lowest financial strata of society are from these two sections,” said an official. Urban areas do not have many Antyodaya card holders. At the bottom of rural households ranked by Monthly Per Capita Expenditure (MPCE), only an estimated 41% held BPL ration cards. On the other hand, among the top 5% of the rural population, an estimated 11% of households held BPL ration cards. Among the next 5% of the rural population, 14% of households held BPL cards, and from among the next 10% of the rural population, 18% of households held BPL ration cards. Also, 43% of “agricultural labour” households and 32% of “other labour” households in rural areas had BPL cards. In urban areas, among the bottom MPCE class households only 29% held BPL ration cards. Regarding rural-urban distribution among social groups, in rural areas, from the total number of ration card-holder households around 10% were scheduled tribe households, 22% were scheduled caste households, 42% were OBC households, and 26% were other households. Among social groups, scheduled tribes had the highest proportion of food-for-work and ICDS beneficiary households in both rural and urban India. Meanwhile, in urban areas, out of the total ration card-holder households, about 2% were scheduled tribe households, 16% were scheduled caste households, 35% were OBC households and 47% were held by other households. Poor availability and quality of commodities has also led several ration card holders to prefer buying essential commodities in the open market despite higher prices, leading to skewed consumption patterns. For instance, when it comes to the consumption of PDS sugar in both rural and urban areas, less than 1% of households used PDS sugar in Punjab, Haryana, Bihar and Jharkhand; less than 2% in Orissa and Uttar Pradesh. At the all-India level, the number of households buying rationed sugar was 16% in rural areas and 12% in urban areas. Similarly, PDS rice was consumed by only a small proportion of households in West Bengal (rural: 13%, urban: 5%), Assam (rural: 9%, urban: 2%) and Bihar (rural: 1%, urban: 0.7%), even though rice is the major cereal food in these states. Interestingly, in Gujarat and Maharashtra where rice is not the major food, 32% and 28% households respectively consumed PDS rice. Similarly, consumption of PDS wheat was common in Karnataka (rural: 46%, urban: 15%), rural Gujarat (29%) and Maharashtra (26%), and relatively common in urban areas of Karnataka (14.6%) and Kerala (12%). But its consumption is low -- less than 1-2% -- in major wheat consuming states like Punjab and Bihar. This could be due to misappropriation of PDS stocks for sale in the open market. Not everyone however believes that the NSSO surveys, conducted once in four or five years, are accurately able to evaluate the PDS. A senior Ministry of Food official stated that a 28-state survey on PDS beneficiaries, recently commissioned by the government and expected out by the end of the year, would afford a better picture of food distribution and access to PDS by the poor. “The NSSO data is based on a sample size and is, to some extent, contradictory,” said the official. The ministry’s surveys are being conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research and the Indian Institute of Public Administration. The NSSO survey assessed 79,298 rural and 45,346 urban households (there are an estimated 200 million households in the country) in 7,999 villages and 4,602 urban blocks. All states and union territories in India were covered, except for interior areas of Nagaland, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Ladakh and Kargil districts in Jammu and Kashmir. The report is based on data collected on types of ration cards held, benefits received from four selected government food assistance schemes, sources of consumption of various commodities, and consumption of rice, wheat/atta, sugar and kerosene from the PDS by households. Data is provided separately for rural and urban sectors of each state and union territory. InfoChange News and Features, July 2007
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