https://transformingindia.mygov.in/infographics/major-reforms-in-targeted-public-distribution-system
Showing posts with label TPDS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TPDS. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
11213 - Major Reforms in TPDS - My Gov.In
https://transformingindia.mygov.in/infographics/major-reforms-in-targeted-public-distribution-system
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
9195 - Measures for improving the Targeted Public Distribution System - Business Standard
Delhi
December 18, 2015 Last Updated at 00:20 IST
The Government has taken various measures for modernising and improving the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) including implementation of a Plan Scheme on End-to-end computerisation of TPDS operations across the country under the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) at a total cost of Rs. 884.07 crore, out of which Government of Indias share is Rs. 489.37 crore and States/UTs share is Rs. 394.70 crore. The cost sharing between centre and States would be on 90:10 basis for North-Eastern States, whereas for other States/UTs, cost will be shared on 50:50 basis. National Informatics Centre (NIC) is the technical partner of the scheme. Financial assistance of Rs. 287.08 crore has already been released to 28 States/UTs, NIC etc till 30.11.2015. This information was given by the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.
The Minister said that the Component-I of the Plan Scheme provides for undertaking various Information Communications Technology (ICT) based activities, such as, digitization of ration cards/beneficiary and other databases, computerisation of supply-chain management, setting up of transparency portal and grievance redressal mechanism. Under this scheme, as per reports received, as on 31.10.2015, ration card data digitization has been done in 29 States/UTs, ration card data is available on Web Portal in 27 States/UTs, Online allocation is being done in 16 States/UTs, supply-chain management in 8 States/UTs, Transparency Portal set up in 27 States/UTs, online Grievance Redressal Mechanism in 26 and toll free helpline number has been set up in 32 States/UTs. As part of beneficiary data digitization, States/UTs have been requested to seed the Aadhaar numbers wherever available so as to weed out the ineligible/ bogus / duplicate beneficiaries. As part of FPS automation at FPS, use of Aadhaar will ensure proper identification of beneficiaries and distribution of foodgrains only to the intended beneficiaries thereby reducing leakages/diversions, etc. As regards financial assistance, Government has approved FPS dealers margins under NFSA which also includes reimbursement of Rs. 17/qtl. for their expenditure towards purchase and operations of the PoS/Mobile Tablet device at the FPS for automation. So far, more than 56,000 FPSs are automated across the country and this count is likely to be increased to 75,000 FPSs by March, 2016.
Friday, December 11, 2015
9152 - C’GARH AMONG SIX STATES FOUND WITH EXCESS RATION CARDS - Daily Pioneer
C’GARH AMONG SIX STATES FOUND WITH EXCESS RATION CARDS
Wednesday, 09 December 2015 | Staff Reporter | Raipur | in Raipur
Chhattisgarh is among six States in the country where excess ration cards were distributed as per an evaluation study conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), the Central Government has informed.
The final report of the study on functioning of ‘Targetted Public Distribution System’ (TPDS) in six selected states which was conducted in March 2014, was accepted in the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in November 2015, it stated.
Based on 2011 census and the family size estimates projected over 2015, the study has estimated the number of excess ration cards made in the six target States with the number of excess cards as follows—Bihar (33.92 lakh), Chhattisgarh (10.84 lakh), Karnataka ( 2.15 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (98.39 lakh), West Bengal (19.39 lakh) and Assam (not specified).
In Chhattisgarh, a total of 94,209 bogus/ineligible rations cards were deleted by the State Government during the last three years including the current year, it stated.
In terms of the PDS (Control) Order, 2001, dated August 31, 2001, the states and Union territories are to review the lists of BPL and AAY families every year for the purpose of deletion of ineligible families and inclusion of eligible families. The exercise of deletion of bogus/ineligible cards and inclusion of eligible families is a continuous process and State Governments are to periodically carry out the same.
The TPDS (Control) Order, 2015 notified on March 20, 2015 also calls for all the necessary action to be taken by states and Union Territories for review of list of beneficiaries and deletion of bogus /ineligible ration cards.
To curb leakages further, under the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA) inter alia, states and Union Territories have been asked to either do cash transfer of food subsidy under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) or install electronic Point of Sale Device (ePoS) at the Fair Price Shops (FPSs).
Notably, Chhattisgarh has achieved 100 per cent digitisation of the Public Distribution System (PDS) beneficiaries database.
There are 23 other States in the country which have also achieved 100 per cent digitisation of the PDS database, officials stated.
Moreover, the Chhattisgarh Government is now also preparing a plan to use Aadhaar cards to identify Public Distribution System (PDS) beneficiaries.
It has prepared a comprehensive action plan for ensuring total transparency in the preparation of ration cards besides evolving a mechanism for error-free identity of Public Distribution System (PDS) beneficiaries.
Under the action plan, the mobile, bank account and Aadhaar numbers of the beneficiaries are being collected.
Food, Civil Supply and Consumer Protection Minister Punnulal Mohle had stated earlier that the State Government has also made a provision of `4,700 crore for implementation of ‘Chief Minister Food and Nutrition Security scheme’ in the State Budget 2015-16.
The Government had made a provision of `1.75 crore in the form of extension of ‘Core PDS’ for its ‘Meri Marzi Scheme.’
Chhattisgarh’s Public Distribution System (PDS) model has gram panchayats, co-operative societies and women’s self-help groups (SHGs) operating the fair price shops, officials stated.
About 90 per cent of the masses are covered under Food and Nutrition Security Act was implemented in 2013, officials stated.
Chhattisgarh’s PDS under Antyodaya and Priority families schemes provides 35 kg foodgrains at `1 per kilogram. Since June 2014, single member category ration card-holders under destitute segment are provided 10 kg foodgrains free of cost.
Notably, Chhattisgarh State Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Minister Punnulal Mohle had called upon the Central Government to computerise the ration shops under the Public Distribution System (PDS) while addressing the State Food Ministers’ National Conference in New Delhi on July 7 this year.
He had urged the Central Government to provide two-kg ‘Daal’ (pulses) at `10 per kg to the Antyodaya and Priority and below poverty card-holders under the National Food Security Act .
Union Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Ramvilas Paswan and Union Agriculture Minister Radhamohan Singh were also present at the meeting.
Mohle said that the Central Government provided subsidised ‘Daal’ underthe Public Distribution System till 2012 and later it was stopped.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
8459 - Govt targets food, kerosene DBT by April 2016 - Financial Express
A family could get estimated Rs 500-700 a month if it opts for cash instead of subsidised foodgrains, kerosene
By: Prasanta Sahu | New Delhi | August 7, 2015 12:56 AM
Enthused by the success of direct benefit transfer (DBT) for LPG, the Narendra Modi government has set an ambitious target to roll out DBT for disbursing food and kerosene subsidies across the country latest by April 1, 2016, officials said.
Unlike in the case of LPG, where the subsidy amount is deposited to beneficiary accounts almost simultaneously with the sale of the fuel to household consumers, the DBT schemes for food and kerosene, the sources said, would have both cash and non-cash options.
Especially in the case of rural areas, the sources added, subsidised rationing of food and kerosene would be better targeted with biometric authentication of beneficiaries.
However, the target, according to analysts, looks challenging as most states are yet to start the authentication of beneficiaries by seeding their bank accounts and Aadhaar numbers.
Officials said the Centre may have to get tough with states on the implementation of DBT, which is crucial for ushering in expenditure reforms to improve the government finances. The Expenditure Management Commission, in its interim report in January 2015, recommended that DBT be implemented in all government welfare schemes to ensure only the deserving get the benefits and leakages are plugged. Major subsidies — food, fertiliser and fuel — which were 2.3% of GDP in FY14, were brought down to 2.0% in FY15 and are estimated to be 1.6% in FY16, thanks to the decontrol of diesel and petrol, benign crude oil prices and a DBT-LPG scheme.
The Centre has made it clear that states won’t be able to get any need-based extra allocation of food under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) if digitisation of beneficiaries list and end-to-end computerisation of PDS is not complete by September 30. If the digitisation and seeding of Aadhaar is not complete by December 31, they will only get PDS rations proportionate to digitisation.
After the fiats, most of the states have completed digitisation of beneficiaries list, but are yet to complete digitisation of online allocation and supply chain systems for subsidised food. The Centre is now pushing states to start de-duplication of beneficiaries by seeding Aadhaar and bank accounts to meet the DBT roll-out target, which officials admit is ambitious.
According to an estimate, a family could get R500-700 per month, depending on its size, if it opts for cash as an alternative to subsidised foodgrains and kerosene. After the failure of the initial pilot in Puducherry in July, the Centre is going to roll out the pilot for DBT-cash for food and kerosene in Puducherry, Chandigarh, Daman & Diu, and Dadra & Nagar Haveli in September. “Based on this experience, states will decide on their option,” a senior government official said.
First Published on August 07, 2015 12:56 am
Saturday, May 23, 2015
8023 - PDS digitisation deadline for states extended by a year - Nagaland Post
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Wednesday, March 11, 2015
7493 - Seed Aadhaar in PDS beneficiaries database: Paswan to states - Economic Times
PTI Mar 3, 2015, 04.12PM IST
NEW DELHI: Centre has asked states and UTs to link the beneficiaries database of public distribution system with the Aadhaar number to de-duplicate the data, Parliament was informed today.
Under the Plan scheme on end-to-end computerisation of Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), states/UTs are interalia required to digitise their ration card/beneficiaries database, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said while replying to a question in the Lok Sabha.
"With a view to de-duplicate the beneficiaries database, States/Uts have also been requested to seed 'Aadhaar' numbers in digitised database," Paswan said.
Replying to a separate question, Minister of State for Food Raosaheb Patil Danve also said that a scheme on end-to-end computerisation of TPDS, with a total approved cost of Rs 884.07 crore is being implemented throughout the country.
The government has so far released an amount of Rs 257.01 crore under this scheme to states, National Informatics Centre and consultancy services.
Friday, December 12, 2014
7026 - Lessons from Andhra Pradesh: building state capacities for welfare - Live Mint
Shyamal Banerjee/Mint
The government of India allocates more than Rs.2.5 trillion a year to the social sector (including subsidies), but the delivery of services is marked by high levels of leakage and corruption.
Weak governance plagues service delivery across sectors and programmes ranging from education, health, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), and Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). Yet, governments are often tempted to focus energies on announcing new programmes and schemes, rather than on building state capacity for better implementation of existing programmes.
This is partly due to political incentives: specific programmes can better deliver patronage to target voter groups, and the returns on investing in implementation capacity may not be seen within one electoral cycle.
One notable exception to this pattern has been the ambitious Aadhaar initiative of the government of India to issue biometric unique IDs linked to bank accounts to all residents. It is hoped that this biometric payments infrastructure will allow direct benefit transfers (DBT) to intended recipients and reduce leakage. Yet there are several reasons to be sceptical about its impact.
First, implementation challenges are non-trivial and the whole system may fail even if only some components fail, potentially making the project a white elephant.
Second, the initiative may be subverted by politically powerful vested interests whose rents are threatened.
Third, there may be exclusion errors if genuine beneficiaries are denied payments, leaving the poorest worse off.
Fourth, there may be negative effects on access to programmes (such as MGNREGS) if the loss of rents reduces incentives for officials to implement the programme.
Finally, even assuming positive impacts, the cost-effectiveness of the system is unknown. Overall, there is very little evidence to support either the enthusiasts or sceptics of biometric payment systems.
We aimed to fill this evidence gap by working with the government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) to evaluate the impact of the Andhra Pradesh Smartcard Project, which used biometrically-authenticated Smartcards to make payments to MGNREGS and Social Security Pension (SSP) beneficiaries. The new system used a network of locally-hired, customer-service providers to biometrically authenticate beneficiaries and make cash payments in villages. It thus provided beneficiaries with the same effective functionality as intended by Aadhaar-linked DBT.
The key to the scientific credibility of our evaluation was a landmark agreement with the Andhra government to randomize the order in which mandals (block-equivalents) in eight districts of the state would be covered by the new system over a two-year period. Since mandals that received the Smartcard programme first (the treatment group) were chosen by lottery, they were on average identical to those that received the programme two years later (the control group).
Thus, differences in programme delivery across treatment and control mandals after two years can be exclusively attributed to the Smartcard programme. Carried out in close collaboration with the Andhra government, this was one of the largest randomized controlled trials ever done. We report several findings (link to presentation).
First, our experience confirms that implementing such a complex project at scale is non-trivial, and will face considerable technical, administrative, and political challenges. Despite exemplary efforts by GoAP to achieve a 100% coverage rate in treatment mandals, the share of Smartcard-enabled payments in those mandals was ~50% after two years.
Enrolling beneficiaries who missed initial enrolment camps was a serious challenge, highlighting the importance of processes for continuous enrolment. Yet despite the incomplete implementation, beneficiaries in carded mandals experienced a faster, more reliable, and less corrupt payment experience. The Smartcard system reduced the lag between working on an MGNREGS project and collecting payment by 29%, and reduced the unpredictability in the lag by 39%. Further, it reduced by 19% the time workers spent collecting MGNREGS payments.
Smartcards also reduced leakage. MGNREGS beneficiaries in treated mandals reported a 24% increase in weekly earnings, while fiscal outlays did not change, resulting in a 35% reduction in leakage (a 10.8 percentage points reduction relative to the average leakage of 30.8% in the control areas). Similarly, SSP reported earnings went up by 5%, while official disbursements did not, leading to a 49% decline in leakage (a 2.9 percentage points reduction relative to average leakage of 6% in the control areas). We find no evidence of negative consequences. More households in treated mandals report working on MGNREGS, and the gains are broad-based, with no household in treatment areas being worse off relative to its counterpart in the distribution in control areas. Reflecting this, beneficiary satisfaction was widespread: 90% of MGNREGS beneficiaries and 93% of SSP beneficiaries exposed to the programme preferred Smartcards to the status quo. Finally, we find that Smartcards were very cost-effective. The monetized value of time savings to beneficiaries (Rs.26 crore) alone was greater than the cost of the new system (Rs.24 crore) for MGNREGS. The reduction in MGNREGS leakage (of Rs.197 crore) was eight times the cost of the programme. SSP leakage was reduced by Rs.20 crore (relative to implementation costs of Rs.14 crore). All estimates are only for the eight study districts, and would be higher if extended to all of Andhra Pradesh. What can we learn from the Smartcards experience about the potential for Aadhaar-linked DBTs in other states and programmes? As always, one has to be careful in extrapolating from one state and two programmes, but our experiences working with the state government suggest five broad lessons, and one caveat. First, it is important to not expect miracles overnight. While 50% coverage in two years may seem modest, even the US took 15 years to migrate social security payments from paper checks to electronic transfers. Our results show that large gains in programme performance are possible even with 50% implementation, and that the investment in biometric payments can pay off in as little as two years. So, implementation challenges should be expected and addressed, but should not be used as an excuse for inaction. Second, adopting biometric authentication need not exclude vulnerable beneficiaries. This is an important finding since such exclusion errors are a (legitimate) concern among opponents of biometric payments, yet we find no evidence of any such adverse effects. We believe this is at least partly because the Andhra government did not make Smartcards mandatory for collecting payment. Thus, while those who enrolled benefited from lower leakage, those who did not (or were not able to) were not excluded. In fact, we find that even beneficiaries without Smartcards benefit from improvements in the payment process in carded villages. While not mandating Smartcards certainly may have left open some avenues for corruption, it may also have been a politically astute choice that helped prevent exclusion errors and maintain broad-based beneficiary support. This lesson is especially pertinent given the Supreme Court’s ruling that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for programme participation. Our experience suggests that an approach that focuses on making Aadhaar-enabled payments more convenient to beneficiaries, but not mandatory, may be the most pragmatic one. Third, there will inevitably be push back from vested interests whose rents are reduced. Senior officials in the Andhra government were much more likely to hear field reports about problems with Smartcards than about positive results. This bias was so severe that the state government considered scrapping the Smartcard system in 2013, and their decision to not do so was partly in response to reviewing our data on beneficiary preferences. The episode provides an excellent example of the political economy of concentrated costs (to low-level officials who lost rents due to Smartcards, and were vocal with negative feedback) versus diffuse benefits (to millions of beneficiaries, who were less likely to communicate positive feedback), and highlights the importance of avoiding policymaking by anecdote, and instead relying on representative data from larger samples. Fourth, given implementation complexities, it would make sense to focus on saturating Aadhaar coverage in a few districts (a few per state) and mastering implementation details of integrating programmes with Aadhaar before trying to scale up too fast. A related lesson is to encourage multiplicity of vendors. An important implementation lesson from Andhra Pradesh was the use of a one-district one-bank model, whereby different banks implemented the Smartcard project in different districts. While this increased coordination costs, it allowed the state government to evaluate vendor performance in the field and re-allocate districts from non-performing banks to high-performing banks and technology-service providers (TSPs). This was critical in preventing the state government from being held hostage by non-performing vendors, and also provided incentives to better-performing banks. Fifth, it is essential to align the incentives of key partners—banks and TSPs—to provide the essential last-mile financial inclusion services. A stick based approach of providing banks with account-opening targets under pain of regulatory penalties is likely to result in large numbers of dormant accounts. On the other hand, paying banks commissions on payments made (Andhra Pradesh paid 2%) creates the right incentives for not just opening accounts but keeping them active. Overall, there are strong synergies between the government’s focus on financial inclusion and DBT, since the commissions on DBT payments can cover the fixed costs of setting up and maintaining last-mile financial inclusion architecture, which are highly valued by beneficiaries. The one policy caveat is that our results focus on the economic costs and benefits of biometric payments, and do not speak to concerns regarding privacy and unauthorized use of Aadhaar-linked data. It would therefore be prudent for the government to make sure that expansion of Aadhaar-linked service delivery is accompanied by enabling legislation with adequate data-use safeguards, and parliamentary approval. Overall, our comprehensive study of the Andhra Smartcard project finds substantial economic benefits to taxpayers and programme beneficiaries from biometrically-authenticated payments, and the results suggest that Aadhaar-enabled DBTs can indeed be a game changer for governance in India. Senior leaders of the new government have expressed strong support for following through on this promise and implementation should now be a top priority. Published with permission from Ideas for India, an economics and policy portal. Karthik Muralidharan is associate professor of economics, University of California, San Diego. Paul Niehaus is assistant professor of economics, University of California, San Diego. Sandip Sukhtankar is assistant professor of economics, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Comments are welcome at theirview@livemint.com Follow Mint Opinion on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Mint_Opinion
Saturday, October 26, 2013
4891 - Govt may rename PDS after Indira Gandhi - TNN
PTI Oct 16, 2013, 06.42PM IST
NEW DELHI: The government is considering a proposal to rename the public distribution system after Indira Gandhi to prevent opposition parties from taking credit for implementing the National Food Security Act.
"There is a proposal to rename the existing Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS)," food minister K V Thomas said. "There are many suggestions like Indiramma Anna Yojana and Annapurna Scheme. We are considering Indiramma Anna Yojana and a final decision on it has not been taken yet."
With Lok Sabha elections not far away, the thinking in the Congress-led UPA government is that late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's name would help it electorally in view of her pro-poor image.
The food security law, a brainchild of UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, could be projected as the unfinished task of Indira Gandhi's 'Garibi Hatao' campaign launched in the 1971 elections.
The minister said the name of the food law would not be changed because that would require an amendment.
"We are going to change the name of the scheme and not the law," Thomas said, adding that he is discussing the issue with rural development minister Jairam Ramesh.
Apart from renaming the PDS, Thomas said the government is considering having a logo for the scheme for better reach.
Last month, Parliament passed the food law to give 67 per cent of the population the right to subsidised foodgrains.
Each eligible person would get five kilograms of foodgrains per month at Rs 3 per kg of rice, Rs 2 per kg of wheat and Re 1 per kg of coarse cereals through the state government under the TPDS.
Congress leaders want the government to ensure that non-Congress parties don't take credit for schemes run and funded by the Centre. They have complained about BJP-ruled states such as Chattisgarh taking credit for the food law.
Congress-ruled Delhi, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh have already announced the launch of the food law. Other states preparing to roll it out.
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