In early July, Neelam Devi (name changed) has made at least three trips to the panchayat office, a few kilometres from her house in Bihar’s Motihari district, for information about the status of her ration card. Her last visit turned out to be fruitful as Devi got an assurance from the officer that her monthly ration will continue for a few more months; the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) has been extended till November. For the past three months, the benefits of the scheme has turned out to be a lifeline of her family.
Under the scheme, ration cardholders are entitled to five kg of rice or wheat per beneficiary and one kg of pulse per family/per month free of cost, which is over and above the subsidised grains. The scheme is a part of the Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package to help those affected due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown. It was earlier valid from April to June.
While the scheme targets 80 crore beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act (NFSA), Neelam Devi doesn’t belong to the club. For the past few months, her family has not been able to avail ration through the Public Distribution System (PDS) as her ration card is not linked to her Aadhaar number. Devi’s husband, who used to work as a driver in Mumbai, has returned home and is out of work now.
It was with the help of local activists that the four-member family managed to get ration on a temporary basis after the lockdown was announced in March. Devi is clueless about what the future holds after November. While many like Neelam Devi are left in the lurch, what is baffling is the dismal record of Bihar in distributing the food grains to the needy. According to government data, Bihar distributed only around 37 per cent of its monthly quota of food grain to beneficiaries at the peak of the migrant crisis in June. Till June 30, the state has distributed 72 per cent of the total food grain lifted from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) for April, May, and June.
Opposition parties were quick to interpret the extension of the free food grain scheme as a political move in view of the impending Bihar elections. However, the distribution chart of other states such as West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh also paints a dismal picture. The alleged callousness of the states has prompted Union minister for food and consumer affairs Ram Vilas Paswan to ask states to be “sensitive” and speed up the distribution of food grains.
Former planning member board member N.C. Saxena believes that the central government needs to monitor the states which failed in implementing the schemes and timely distribution of food grain. Saxena points out that the data posted on the websites of many states show that the total distribution of food grains in April 2020 is slightly less than that of April 2019.
“Ideally, the states should have distributed double amount of food grains this year during such a crisis. This shows that the states are not implementing the schemes properly. The central government has to find out why they are lagging behind,” says Saxena, a former rural development secretary.
Jharkhand, one of the worst-hit states by the pandemic and migrant influx was at the forefront in demanding an extension of the free grain scheme. The state food and consumer affairs minister Rameshwar Oraon welcomes the move with caveats.
“The extension of PMGKAY will benefit the cardholders. But there are lakhs of people who don’t possess cards under BPL. How to feed them is the problem,” he says. Oraon stresses that the scope of the scheme needs to be expanded in view of the humanitarian crisis caused by the pandemic. The minister also said that the state has special schemes for migrants and the ones who are out of the ambit of PDS.
“Approximately 9.5 lakh people have applied for ration cards in the last six months. We are providing 10 kgs rice to the non-card holders also. We will be enforcing universalisation of PDS soon,” says Oraon, adding that the delays in distributing the food grains will be sorted out by mid-July.
Dipa Sinha, a ‘right to food’ activist, points out the flaws in the ‘Atmanirbhar package’ rolled out by the central government in May especially for returning migrant workers. She says that the government came up with the package realising that a large group of people has been left out in the crisis. While the government announced a 5-kg food grain scheme for 8 crore migrant workers for May and June, government data showed that it reached only 13 per cent of the beneficiaries.
A possible reason for the gap could be the central government’s failure to give proper guidelines to the states to identify the migrants. “Implementation wasn’t happening properly. How will you identify the 8 crore people? What are the criteria? The central government left it to the states. It will take a lot of time for any state government to identify new beneficiaries,” says Sinha, who teaches at Ambedkar University, Delhi.
She says that more people should be added to the system to extend the benefits of PDS. Since NFSA was implemented in 2013, its calculations were done on the basis of Census 2011. With the increase in population over the years, it’s possible that at least 10 crore people are excluded from the list.
Siraj Hussain, a former agriculture secretary says that 10 crore more people need to be included in the coverage of the NFSA. “Currently there are 80 crores ration cardholders. To bring in 10 crores more people, Niti Ayog has to give the number of people in each state, who are eligible for fresh ration cards,” says Hussain.
Many activists also argue that implementing universalisation of PDS is an emergency response to the current crisis. Sejal Dand, a Gujarat-based ‘right to food, campaign activist cannot agree more. For the past three months, Dand has been struggling to address the problems of tribals in the state, who are excluded from PDS for various reasons. She says that with reduced income sources and mounting food insecurity, the situation is grim. “For the excluded people, the administration has given ration for April and May. There is huge confusion,” says Dand adding that universalising PDS is the only solution in a disaster situation.
However, Saxena disagrees with the idea of universalising PDS. ‘Why should everyone get subsidised food grains? Those who can afford should buy from the market,” he says. He believes that the onus is on the state governments to update the list of beneficiaries and implement the schemes in an effective way.
