The National Food Security Act, an ambitious project of the erstwhile UPA government to make the country food-secure, has been implemented in 24 states under the current NDA regime.
While there were only 11 states a year ago, 13 more states have started implementation of NFSA in the last six months and presently, highly subsidised food grains under the law, are being allocated to about 53 crore beneficiaries (approximately 11 crore households).
Further, according to government officials, end-to-end computerisation is also being completed to plug loopholes, if any, for bringing in transparency in the functioning of the PDS (Public Distribution System). The beneficiary database has been digitised in 29 states, wherein, information is available right upto beneficiary level and is in the public domain. Online allocation of food grains is being done in 17 states, and the entire food grain supply chain has been computerised in nine states.
Meanwhile, all states have set up grievance redressal systems including online facilities and toll free numbers. Two different modes have been adopted towards better targeting and leakage-free distribution of food grains, In the first mode (DBT - Direct Benefit Transfer), food subsidy is being transferred in cash into the bank account of beneficiaries, who then have the choice to buy food grains from the open market. This has been started in two Union territories of Chandigarh and Puducherry.
The second mode, involves FPS (Fair Price Shop) automation, for distribution of food grains through a Point of Sale (PoS) device which authenticates beneficiaries at the time of distribution and also electronically captures the quantum of food grains distributed to the family. At present PoS devices are operational in about 59,500 shops. This number is targeted to go up to 1.5 lakh FPS by March 2016 and 5.42 lakh by March 2017. States/UTs are being extended Central assistance to install PoS devices at FPS seeded with Aadhaar numbers in the beneficiary database. Ration card-wise seeding of Aadhaar has gone up from 8% at the end of April 2015 to 39% by mid-December 2015 and is being constantly monitored.
Kavita Srivastava, an activist, who recently filed a PIL for the Act to be implemented in totality, appeared satisfied with the situation. She stated, “Yes, 24 states have implemented NFSA. This means that they have identified households under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) for allocating rice/wheat/millets at Rs3/2/1, respectively. As per the current status most states have identified 100% beneficiaries, but Chandigarh, Odisha, West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh are yet to identify a significant proportion of their beneficiaries. Since many states have recently implemented NFSA, it is too early to say if it is successful. But yes, some states such as Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, which implemented NFSA in 2014, have recorded improvement.”
She added, “Digitisation of database helps to reduce leakages by reducing bogus/fake cards. If implemented well, digitisation will strengthen the PDS. Also, setting up grievance redress system is absolutely necessary to ensure that people are able to complain if their entitlements are denied due to any reason, or if there is corruption.”
According to the government, due to digitisation, 61.43 lakh bogus/duplicate/ineligible ration cards have been deleted in the last two years, thus stopping diversion and misuse of food grains amounting to about Rs 4,200 crore.
Central government shares 50% (75% in the case of hilly and difficult areas) of the cost of handling and transportation of food grains incurred by the states and the dealers’ margin so that it is not passed on to the beneficiaries and they get coarse grain at Rs1/kg, wheat at Rs 2/kg and rice at Rs 3/kg.
The Act also focusses on nutritional requirements of pregnant women and children upto 14 years of age by entitling them to receive nutritious meals, free of cost. Nutritional standards of the meals have been prescribed in the Act itself. Pregnant women and lactating mothers are entitled to receive maternity benefit of Rs 6,000 per pregnancy.
The NFSA came into force in July 2013. In the first 10 months, 11 states had started implementation of NFSA covering about seven crore households. Implementation in some of the states was started hurriedly without completing all the requisite preparations. Consequently problems were faced. Uttarakhand had to roll back the implementation and Bihar also faced initial problems in distribution.
