TN story: A case of efficiency, co-ops & electronics

At least in Tamil Nadu, a major impact of populist measures by successive regimes has been that the system apportioning food commodities, particularly rice which is South India ’s staple grain, can be messed up only at the ruler’s own peril.

So every government in Tamil Nadu tries to keep its Public Distribution System (PDS) trim and proper, despite its inherent deficiencies like leakages and diversion of highly subsidised commodities to lucrative markets.

But the vital importance of rice in the people’s diet and in the children’s noon-meal programme in government schools up to class Ten - Tamil Nadu is a trendsetter in this programme for the entire country - has made its ‘avatar’ through the PDS its own self-regulator to guard against excesses.

Hence, if the World Bank finds the PDS relatively more efficient and successful in Tamil Nadu, there are solid reasons for it. Historically, it is to be primarily traced to the growth of the cooperative movement. It has obviated the need for direct cash transfer to the poor, at least vis-à-vis distribution of essential commodities through the PDS.

The Triplicane Urban Cooperative Society (TUCS) heralded the cooperative movement in the country and organised retailing in April 1904. Entwined with the National freedom movement, the TUCS became a model in propelling the virtues of thrift and self-reliance.
It is this century-old tradition that has been the nucleus of the PDS system - basically a network of at present 32,571 fair price shops or more popularly known as ration shops.

Unlike other States, Tamil Nadu makes no formal distinction between BPL and APL families, except under the Centre’s Antyodya Anna Yojana wherein nearly 18.65 lakh ‘poorest of the poor’ households have been identified in the State. They are each entitled to 35 kg of rice per month.

As regards the other over 1.96 crore ration card holders, the State has implicitly assumed an income criterion that marks off nearly 1.85 crore families covered under the PDS to entitle each one of them to draw up to 20 kg of rice every month.

After elimination of bogus ration cards through an intensive door-to-door campaign, the number of such households now officially stands at nearly 1.66 crore, which covers nearly two-thirds the State’s  population.

Thus in the absence of a formal BPL/APL divide, Tamil Nadu has evolved its own genre of a ‘universal PDS’, which is considered more progressive than the ‘targeted PDS’.

The Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation, which is at the apex of managing the PDS, has a strong network warehouses,  from where the stocks of essential commodities are moved by the lead cooperative societies and “delivered at the doorsteps of the ration shops.” There are “pre-designed charter routes” to check against diversion of food stocks, even as private traders are not allowed to run the ration shops. This entire network is being step-by-step embraced by an ‘E-Governance Action Plan’ to automate all PDS activities.

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