Under a month of its emphatic victory in Bengal election a very definitive reason of Trinamool Congress’ [TMC] success was indicated by economist Jean Dreze. The Public Distribution System [PDS] has performed “enormously well” in Bengal, since the passage of the National Food Security Act [NFSA] in 2013, said Mr Dreze.
Mr Dreze made the statement in an interview with The Hindu following a survey in six States, including West Bengal, earlier this month. In Bengal the survey was conducted in six villages of Bankura and Birbhum district by the student researchers of various universities and Pratichi Institute of Professor Amartya Sen. Similar survey was conducted in six other States — Chattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha — by the Department of Economics, Ranchi University and IIT, Delhi.
“We were quite curious about Bengal as there were no detailed story about PDS in Bengal…we were happily surprised to find out that it is working pretty well. PDS was really bad in Bengal but it is certainly [doing] enormously well now. Exclusion errors were also relatively few,” said Mr Dreze, who is one of the architects of NFSA. However, he also added that since the size of the survey was small, it requires further “corroboration.” 2444 villagers were interviewed in Bengal for the survey, a report published by the researchers said.
Findings
The report said that ration coverage in the 519 surveyed households is “fairly impressive” as it rose “sharply” from 50.13 to 86.13 per cent households in post-NFSA period, in nearly three years. While the list of card holders is still being corrected, “only about 12.79 per cent [equivalent of six States average]” are missing from the NFSA list which is “most likely [due to] error rather than fraud.” Based on the survey, Mr Dreze said that the State has streamlined its complex PDS.
“Bengal had an extremely complicated system of different entitlements for different places. It had all kind of special packages, different prices at different times and the weekly distribution was extraordinarily complicated. As a result it was easy to cheat people but it was simplified,” Mr Dreze told The Hindu. Average purchase of PDS food grains, as percentage of entitlements, is also higher in Bengal than the average of six States.
Problems
Though 90 per cent of cardholders in six Bengal villages avail ration from the PDS, only 57.14 per cent said the quality of food grain was “good or fair,” which is far less than the average [69] of six States. In fact it is lowest among the six States surveyed. People were “unhappy” with the quality of wheat flour, the report said. One of the researchers Sabir Ahamed, representing Pratichi Institute, said that they have identified at least half a dozen issues which are “worrying.”
“Village level grievance redressal mechanism is dysfunctional. People are neither aware nor interested to complain. They are clearly afraid that it would affect the monthly supply,” Mr Ahamed said.
“The other area of concern is, those who have passed away are still drawing ration. The supply is procured in the name of the deceased and then sold through private grocery shops, which are attached to nearly every ration shop. Both ration and grocery shop is owned, in most cases, by the same dealer,” he added. The ration shops run by the cooperative bodies rather than individuals are performing better, Mr Ahamed concluded.
a. Priority households only (missing name = household member not listed in ration card).
b. Priority and Antyodaya (AAY) households combined.
Source: House-to-house survey of all households in six randomly-selected villages (three in each of two sample Blocks, located in separate districts) in each state, June 2016. The sample is biased towards deprived districts and small villages.
All figures are provisional.
