smart cards and Public Distribution System (PDS)

PUNJAB has decided to introduce smart cards to issue rations under the Public Distribution System (PDS). It is high time the system that has been dumb to extreme corruption since its inception was smartened up. A 2005 ‘India Corruption Study’ by Transparency International and the Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies had found that 69 per cent of the wheat released under the PDS in Punjab ended up in the open market. In some states it was even 100 per cent. Such is the expanse of the distribution network that mere ‘close supervision’ cannot work. The system itself has to be such that it does not leave any scope for pilferage. Various ways have been considered, including distribution of ration coupons to the beneficiaries, which may be exchanged for food at any shop, and the government could pay the shop for the coupons thus collected.

Technology now provides for going a step further. Smart cards can function on the lines of an ATM card, except that you get ration at the fair price shop after swiping it in machine there. Instantly, the quantity purchased gets tallied against the quota for each beneficiary as well as the total ration supplied to the shop owner. To show ration sold, the owner will thus have to have physical access to a card. That drastically limits the scope for faking sales. Beneficiaries can also possibly make purchases at any fair price shop, as their entire record will be on the card. Once the system is in place nationally, it may even be used to serve inter-state migrants, who otherwise get left out.
Jurisdiction issues have, however, delayed countrywide implementation of the system. A taskforce headed by Unique Identification (UID) Authority chief Nandan Nilekani had been initially asked to make recommendations to use its database to set up the system. The Union Food and Public Distribution Ministry, however, subsequently proposed its own system to be implemented through the National Informatics Centre. The government has to take a call on this data collection war — and duplication — that has gone on just too long.