This refers to Sreenivasan Jain's column "A grain of common sense" (The Thick Of It, June 12). A weak structure for accountability and auditing gives ample opportunities to officials of the food and civil supplies department and operators of the public distribution system (PDS) to tamper with the ration supplied. Though it is the department's duty to oversee the functioning of PDS, it's not possible to ensure the quality and quantity of the ration supplied given the difficulty in checking the manually maintained records. Even when the ration is stocked for a few days, there is much scope for manoeuvring. The operators have no stake in the entire system, and their commission is too nominal. And so, it's easy for officials to involve them, too. If the food security Bill is implemented, which has a provision to provide food to roughly 750 million people, the distribution will be virtually impossible via direct cash transfer. Hence, PDS seems indispensable. But then, it urgently needs to be revitalised. In the present situation, one shop per village could be sufficient, but with the implementation of the food Bill, the number of recipients will increase significantly, and more ration shops will be required. In this context, self-help groups, which tend to stay clean in the public domain, can be roped in to handle PDS better. Moreover, the maintenance of despatch and delivery at the two ends could be facilitated through the use of technology, for which the expenses must be borne by the government.
R K Arya Faridabad
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