Words of Wisdom

• The way to do, is to be - Lao Tzu

• No one has to change, but everyone has to have the conversation -- change will come out of it

• I would rather have my mind open by wonder than closed by belief

• The exclusive sign of KNOWLEDGE is Teaching - Aris

• You are not a human being having spiritual experience; you are a spiritual being having a human experience

• It is a mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it

• As beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder; foolishness does so in the mind

Improving PDS in India

Problem: Loss of food quantity to Corrupt, Adulteration Pilferage. the current estimate is about 8mil tonnes, which is about 57%.

Solution: There is a three stage strategy to reduce the loss of food quantity.

1. Pre-packaging by Government
2. Reporting, through electronic media, of inventory movements at the retailer
3. Barcoding of Ration Cards and electronic Finger Printing of consumers @ Point of Sale

1) Pre-packaging by Government

Currently the Govt gives a bag of 100kgs of Rice, Wheat, Sugar to the retailer. the retailer in turn sells it in loose quantity to the consumer. This system allows the retailer to Adulterate or Pilferage (by selling lesser quantity using faulty weights).

I believe all this together cost at least 30% of loss to the Govt.

Government should prepack the items in units of 50gms, 100gms, 250gms (prepack quantity can be determined based on varying factors) and send them to the retailer. The packing should be tamper proof.

The cost of setting up the packaging unit will be much less than saving of 30% food quantity through this process.

2) Reporting, through electronic media, of inventory movements at the retailer

Currently the reporting system at the retailer is manual. This introduces mistakes, delays and allows the retailer to fudge the quantity amounts easily.

A simple daily electronic reporting system devised to be updated via telephony will be very effective in reducing the mistakes and fudging of quantity amounts.

3) Barcoding of Ration Cards and electronic Finger Printing of consumers @ Point of Sale

This is the most important one; although the most difficult one. Maybe it can be piggybacked on the Unique Identity Card project.

Currently the Ration Cards are totally misused and quite a lot of them are duplicate. The misuse is not only by counterfeiting them but also by the retailer in case of dead citizens (even some alive ones).

If we Barcode the Ration Cards, counterfieting will reduce a lot or atleast get caught quickly. Further if we capture the Finger Prints of consumers @ Point of Sale (solution already piloted for NREGA) whilst buying items using their Ration Cards. We can develop a database of member's Finger Prints against a Ration Card, and validate periodically.

Finally

The Govt of India needs to introduce a carrot for the state governments to improve the PDS system. Something of the lines of JNNURM, improve and get rewarded!