Why do the north and the south ends of the country work in opposite directions, especially when it comes to dealing with the poor? The Delhi government, led by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, plans to shut down its ration shops. Cash is to be given to households, instead of food grains, sugar and kerosene. Many families, harassed by irregular supplies at ration shops, are happy with the proposal. Others are worried that cash may be insufficient, and also prove to be as irregular as kind in future.
A pilot project has been completed in West Delhi’s Raghuvir Nagar. About 100 families here have been getting Rs 1,000 a month — in place of food grains — for the past six months. One of the beneficiaries is Shahjahan, who with her husband and 10 children, lives in a one-room tenement in F-302, Raghuvir Nagar. It is more like an enterprise. Her family gets old denim trousers from the market, loosens the stitches, cuts them again and re-stitches them into specified sizes, before taking them back to the market.
The more they stitch, the more they can earn. The family manages Rs 10,000-12,000 monthly. With a below poverty line (BPL) ration card, they have been getting 22 kg of wheat, six litres of kerosene and five kgs of sugar from the ration dealer for over a decade, since they migrated to Delhi from Uttar Pradesh. Shahjahan shakes her head and says, “It is no good unless the money is increased. The money should take into account the number of members, rather than being the same for every family. We need two kg of flour daily. This fetches nothing.”
At F-366 in the same locality, Ramvir Singh who lives off washing and reselling old clothes is happy with the cash transfer scheme, as he is tired of making endless rounds of the ration shop and not getting grains regularly. He is part of the 100 families selected for the cash transfer pilot project.
Deepak Kumar, who lives in F-515, Raghuvir Nagar, and is not part of the pilot project, feels ration scheme should continue. “I get the station house officer from the police station, if the ration dealer creates any problem. But if we don’t get the money, who do I fight with?” he asks.
Asks Ruksana Begum of F-54, “How can you get 33 kg of wheat, five kg of sugar and five litres of kerosene with Rs 1,000? You get ground wheat for not less than Rs 16-17, sugar for Rs 35-40 and kerosene for Rs 35,” she adds.
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But, no one is interested in their views. They have no option, but to accept whatever they get. The public distribution system (PDS) has been proved a failure with food grains and kerosene not being available on time. So, people are left with the only option of accepting cash. But what if this option also proves to be a failure?
In the south, the Kerala government, led by the Congress party itself, is on the other extreme. The previous Left-led government had announced rice for Rs 2 a kg just before the elections. Now that the elections are over and people (both BPL and above poverty line) have started getting rice for Rs 2 a kg, the new government has announced rice at Rs 1 for BPL families.
Sixty five-year-old widow Mani lives in Thrissur’s Ancheri village with her son’s family. She feels the Rs 2 a kg rice is keeping their hearths burning. The money would disappear in no time and she might have nothing to eat. She does cleaning in other houses to support her son’s family.
Jayan, another BPL card holder, is a daily wage worker and earns Rs 15,000 a month. He is happy with the Rs 2 rice. They get five kg a week, with a kg of sugar every month. The money would be no substitute, he says.
Not that these people are happy with the PDS system. There are complaints against our ration shop all the time, says Mani. But the ration card is the biggest social security they have. If the ration shop ditches them, it can still fetch them subsidised food grains, pulses and sugar from Maveli stores and Supplyco stores in the state. We can’t do away with it, the two BPL card holders in Kerala say.
There are families which use the food grains to feed poultry and cattle. Others just don’t buy ration, but access supplies from Supplyco and Maveli stores. While people in Kerala are free to choose, Shahjahan has no choice, but to take what is given — whether cash or kind — or something even less kind.