New Delhi: The Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan today asserted that the Government is going to implement “One nation-one ration card” scheme in the whole country by 30th June, 2020. Shri Paswan said, while addressing media in New Delhi that work on linking all the ration cards all over the country with Aadhar cards and organizing food grain distribution mechanism in its entirety through Point of Sale (PoS) machine is in the final stage.
Currently Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana and Tripura are 10 states where 100% POS machines have been arranged for grain distribution and all PDS shops have been connected to the Internet. Now, in these states any beneficiary can take grain from any public distribution system shop in that state.Shri Paswan stated that arrangements are being made to ensure that by August 15, 2019, beneficiaries of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Gujarat and Maharashtra will be able to take ration from anywhere in both states.
The Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution asserted that work is being done on war footing to ensure “One Nation One Ration Card” scheme is implemented across the nation and for that data of all ration cards will be connected to one server and any beneficiary, anywhere in the country, will be able to pick up their grain from any public distribution system of their choice after 30th June, 2020.
Union Minister Shri Ram Vilas Paswan, in arecently held meeting with State Food Secretaries and State government officials along with officials of Food Corporation of India (FCI), Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) and State Warehousing Corporations (SWCs) on 27th June, reviewed the progress of this work. (Link for PIB press release: http://pib.nic.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=1576014). Shri Paswanissued instructions to State government officials to ensure thatspecial arrangements were made for distribution of ration to the migrant population within the next two months in some of the major cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and other major cities in Maharashtra where the proportion of migrant population is high.
The Minister said work is in the final stage for integrating the entire public distribution system with the Depots online system (DOS)to ensure seamless working of the National Food Security Act and bringing further transparency in the storage and distribution process of food grains.FCI will provide an internet gateway for integrating DOS with State governments within 4 months. After that, within 2 months, States will integrate their Warehouse Management Systems with DOS. The Union Minister issued instructions to the officials of Department of Food and PD to continuously review the progress made in this regard.
Shri Ram Vilas Paswan further stated that the work done by the department of Food and Public Distribution is very important and it is almost a life line for the beneficiaries wherein 612 lakh ton of food grains stored in warehouses of FCI, CWC, SWCs and private godowns are distributed among 81 crore beneficiaries annually. Shri Paswan asserted that focus is on use of Information Technology right from the time of procurement of food grains till its distribution which will help in increasing the overall efficiency of the entire process, while maintaining transparency and curbing corruption.
FCI has implemented the Depot Online System (DOS) in all its 563 warehouses and CWC has implemented it in 144 depots. Apart from this, procurement of food grains by the FCI has also been made online while purchase, storage and distribution system of most States has been made online in some form or the other.
Shri Paswan emphasized that it is imperative that there is a seamless flow of information online between FCI and States and therefore they need to be integrated so that exact information on procurement and distribution across the nation is available. The Union Minister insisted that there should be a system for storage of all such qualitative and quantitative information which can then be accessed through the ‘annavitran’ portal and the specially designed dashboard which he personally monitors in the morning meetings with senior officials of the Ministry.
Another key announcement was regarding asolutionto the problem of malnutrition.The Food & PD department will be implementing a new Centrally Sponsored Pilot Scheme for “Fortification of Rice and its Distribution under Public Distribution System” which was given administrative approval on 14-Feb-2019. The Pilot Scheme has been approved with a total budget outlay of Rs.147.61 crores for a period of 3 years beginning 2019-20. The Pilot Scheme would be funded by Government of India in the ratio of 90:10 in respect of North Eastern, Hilly and Island States and 75:25 in respect of the rest of the States.
The Pilot Scheme will focus on 15 Districts (one District per State).At present, 9 states have agreed to start the scheme and have identified the districts. These states are Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Assam. The remaining states have been requested to select the districts and work on implementation of this system by selecting Agency-Mills for rice fortification. It has been kept in the government’s 100 days agenda.The Ministry of Women and Child Development and Human Resource Development have already been providing rice fortified with nutritious elements in Anganwadi centers and Mid-Day Meal Scheme.
