Pune zilla parishad, in a unique initiative, has created a ‘mirror public distribution system (PDS)’ where foodgrain will be distributed to vulnerable rural sections like tribal communities and migrant labourers, through temporary ration cards.
Ayush Prasad, chief executive officer (CEO), Pune zilla parishad, told The Hindu that the move is expected to benefit more than 80,000 undocumented people residing in the rural areas of the district, who are hit hard by the lockdown. These people belong to vulnerable and the most economically backward sections like migrant labourers, transgenders, and particularly vulnerable tribal groups.
This initiative, with its objective to enact the National Food Security Act in the district’s backwater areas, aims to avoid cumbersome documentation and instead rely on Aadhaar-based authentication.
The ZP authorities are piggybacking on the India Post Payments Bank to open accounts for these undocumented people with no access to the PDS.
Given that gram sabhas are not functioning in the lockdown period, the beneficiaries are to be identified by a committee comprising the sarpanch, the gram sevak, and the local police patil , who has also been tasked with maintaining records of migrants in a village.
The account opening procedure will be very swift given that Pune district scarcely has any areas where there are no post offices, Mr. Prasad said.
“As soon as the biometric Aadhaar-based link is established and their accounts are opened, this will be the only authentication required for these undocumented people to draw their rations. This will also serve the dual purpose of Aadhaar verification at ground level,” he said.
Mr. Prasad added that to observe rules of social distancing, members of the gram panchyats will home-deliver the rations to the beneficiaries.
Mr. Prasad said as Maharashtra has such a large proportion of migrant labourers still stranded owing to the lockdown, governments of Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, who had announced facilities to be provided for them, could thus transfer cash directly to their accounts via direct benefit transfer once the ZPs had records of such people.
“Another option is for roving business correspondents of these postal banks to transact cash directly with these people once the accounts are opened,” said the Pune ZP CEO.
He said technically the zilla parishads have no financial authority to purchase foodgrain from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and distribute them.
“So, as the FCI has allowed NGOs to buy and sell food at subsidised base rates for rice and wheat during the lockdown, we have approached such outfits and private players like Zomato and corporates like Bajaj Foundation to purchase grains from the FCI. As the zilla parishad’s strength lies in the organisation’s network, the NGOs or interested corporates could purchase essentials from the FCI while the ZP would look after the distribution,” Mr. Prasad said.
According to the zilla parishad authorities, this has not been implemented anywhere in the country since the announcement of the lockdown.
To make the system fool-proof and ensure no bogus claims, Mr. Prasad said the network of elected ward members of a gram panchayat is strong and that they are generally familiar with their constituents.
He pointed out that more often than not, tribes like the Katkaris and nomadic tribes or communities leading a nomadic lifestyle like Pardhis, Dhangars and Banjaras slip out of the PDS net and do not have access to foodgrain in such times of crisis.
“The surveyor or the gram sevak can cross-verify the details of where the intended beneficiaries reside in the village and the village talathi (revenue officer) can check whether that person is indeed part of the ration system or not,” he said.
