Gross distortion in PDS system: NSSO

A survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) has revealed that 51 per cent or more than half of India's rural households (marginal farmers possessing less than 1,076 square feet of land) have no ration card at all.

In all other land holding classes, 77-88 per cent of households, possessed ration cards of some type. At the all-India level, 81 per cent of rural households and 67 per cent of urban households possessed ration cards. BPL (below poverty line) cards were held by only 26.5 per cent of rural households and 10.5 per cent of urban households.

Antyodaya card-holders, provided to the extremely poor, were less than 3 per cent in rural households and less than 1 per cent in urban households.

"What is shocking is that only 40 per cent of rural BPL households have BPL cards, while non-BPL households possess the rest. This shows that the fair process has not been followed in distributing BPL cards," said Chief Statistician Pronab Sen while responding to the findings of the survey on the public distribution system and other sources of household consumption for 2004-05.

When it comes to the consumption of PDS sugar, in both rural and urban areas, fewer than 1 per cent households consumed PDS sugar in Punjab, Haryana, Bihar and Jharkhand, and fewer than 2 per cent in Orissa and Uttar Pradesh, the survey found.

At the all-India level, the number of households buying sugar from PDS was 16 per cent in rural areas and 12 per cent in cities.

Similarly, PDS rice was consumed by only a small proportion of households in West Bengal (rural: 13 per cent; urban: 5 per cent), Assam (rural: 9 per cent, urban: 2 per cent) and Bihar (rural: 1 per cent; urban: 0.7 per cent), though rice is the major cereal food in these states. This could be attributed to lower availability of rice and sugar in these states.

Interestingly, in Gujarat and Maharashtra, where rice is not the major cereal food, 32 per cent and 28 per cent households, respectively, consumed PDS rice.