Delay on the part of Bihar government in lifting foodgrains was the main reason for beneficiaries not getting ration allocations on time in the state, a high-level central team has said in its report.
The team, which visited Bihar, was constituted by Union Minister for Consumer, Food & Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan to review the PDS System in the wake of death of one Jago Manjhi reportedly due to starvation, the Consumer, Food & Public Distribution Ministry said in a release said today.
The team, led by Joint Secretary Deepak Kumar in the Department of Food in the Ministry, found that "there was delay in lifting of foodgrains by the states in some districts which was main reason for not getting ration allocations by the beneficiaries on time."
In view of the findings of the team, the Centre has asked the Bihar government to ensure timely lifting of foodgrains from FCI godowns so that it can reach at Fair Price Shops in the beginning of the month, the release said.
Paswan, during his Bihar visit on March 28, had said that the death of 60 year-old dalit Jago Manjhi exposed the hole in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's agenda of good governance and implementation of the Public Distribution System (PDS).
Nitish Kumar categorically denied any starvation death in the state saying it was due to some illness.
Paswan had announced that a central committee would visit Bihar to ascertain whether or not the state government was abiding by the control order.
The Centre's Department of Food has issued a control order for end-to-end computerisation and constitution of monitoring committee at panchayat level to usher in transparency in distribution of food quota to the beneficiaries.
The central team has also asked the state government to upload the data of all beneficiaries of National food Security Act (NFSA) on state PDS portal.
It was also observed that the state has digitized the
data of NFSA beneficiaries, but has not uploaded the data of such NFSA beneficiaries on the portal till now, which is one of the mandatory requirement for the allocation of highly subsidized foodgrains, the report said.
It was depriving a number of beneficiaries from the allocation of wheat at Rs 2 per kg and rice at Rs 3 per kg, the release said.
The state was asked to display the beneficiaries' list on the portal prominently. It was informed that under a campaign in each village and town, Aadhaar number and other details of beneficiaries are being collected for the purpose and the process will be completed in three months.
During the visit, it was informed that problem of lifting of foodgrains is being faced only in districts of Patna, Araria, Bhojpur, Bhagalpur and Saharsa. On receiving complaints of irregularities in these districts, raids were conducted in godowns and licenses were suspended of some private transporters.
The Center asked the FCI and state government agencies to find out the ways to avoid the delay in lifting foodgrains from neighbouring districts in the absence of FCI godowns in some districts.
The team insisted that to check leakage in PDS, states should install 'Point of Sale Device' at Fair Price Shop (FPS) for biometric identification of beneficiaries at the earliest.
A state govenrment official informed that such devises were being installed at 56 FPS of Noor block of Nalanda district. He also informed that DBT would also be introduced as pilot project next month in one of the blocks of Purnea district, the release said.
