India is moving towards #OneNationOneRationCard!
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New Delhi, Jun 27: The Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Ram Vilas Paswan met 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)in New Delhi today.
Paswan discussed various issues pertaining to the efficient implementation of national food security act, End to end computerization, transparency in storage and distribution of food grains and synergizing of all FCI depots and CWC and SWC depots with the Depot Online System (DOS).
Addressing the gathering, Ram Vilas Paswan stated that the work done by the Department of Food and Public Distribution is very important and it is almost a lifeline 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.
The Union Minister expressed satisfaction over the fact that the Depot Online System (DOS) has been implemented in all warehouses of Food Corporation of India (FCI) and 144 depots of Central Warehousing Corporation and the food grain procurement process of FCI is also being done online. Shri Paswan expressed happiness that most States have also made their procurement, storage and distribution processes online in some way or the other.
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 ‘’annavitaran’’ portal. The Union Minister said that this will help in improving the image of FCI, CWC, and SWCs.
The key decision taken in the meeting was that 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 the Department of Food and PD to review the progress in 4 months and the next meeting in this regard will be held in January 2020.
Another key decision taken was moving towards One Nation One Ration Card (RC) which will ensure all beneficiaries especially migrants can access PDS across the nation from any PDS shop of their own choice. This will provide freedom to the beneficiaries as they will not be tied to any one PDS shop and reduce their dependence on shop owners and curtail instances of corruption.
Integrated Management of PDS (IMPDS) is a system that is already operational in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Tripura wherein a beneficiary can avail his share of food grain from any district in the State. In today’s meeting, other states also assured that IMPDS will be implemented at the earliest. The Department of Food and PD is working on war footing to achieve the objective of One Nation One Ration Card and in the next two months, beneficiaries of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh will be able to access the PDS shops.
The objective of the department is to ensure that this is implemented nationally in a time-bound manner. There will also be the creation of a Central Repository of all RCs which will help in de-duplication. Shri Paswan asserted that the biggest beneficiary of this will be those migrant laborers who move to other States to seek better job opportunities and will ensure their food security.