This scheme is being implemented on a trial basis to gauge preferences and responses of the people
In a radical departure from the present system, beneficiaries eligible for subsidised grain under the public distribution system (PDS) will be able to opt for direct benefit transfer of the subsidy in cash. To be rolled out from two locations in Mumbai in September, the choice-based system will be extended elsewhere and for other commodities like kerosene depending on the results of this pilot project.
A senior Maharashtra food and civil supplies department official said, this was based on the directives of the Centre to the states. "This scheme is being implemented on a trial basis to gauge preferences and responses of the people," he explained. The state expects this to bring down open market diversions of subsidised PDS grain.
"We are giving beneficiaries the option of either subsidised grain or bank transfer of the subsidy on the amount of grain they are eligible for. This is happening on an experimental basis in two shops, one at Azad Maidan, which covers 1,418 priority households and another at Mahalaxmi which supplies 365 families," Dilip Shinde, Controller of Rationing and Director of Civil Supplies, told DNA.
He said consents of beneficiaries were being taken at these two shops. The details of their bank accounts were being linked to their PDS cards with the two shops collecting consents of 700 and 262 families respectively.
Beneficiaries opting for DBT will get the subsidy transferred to the bank account of the eldest woman in the family (above the age of 18 years).
Maharashtra has around 1.48 crore ration cards (or 7.0016 crore targeted beneficiaries of an 11.23 crore estimated population) covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013. It covers up to 75% of the rural and up to 50% of the urban population for receiving subsidized food grains under Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). The state government is seeding Aadhaar numbers with PDS cards and has achieved over 86% seeding.
NFSA families get 5kg allotment of subsidized rice and wheat per person (3kg wheat at Rs 2 per kg and 2kg rice at Rs 3 per kg).
Suresh Sawant of the Rationing Kruti Samiti said the experiment should consider the average market price of rice and wheat in the local market and transfer the difference between this and the PDS rates to beneficiaries. He also mooted a study to see the end-use of cash once it was transferred to beneficiary accounts.
Other Details
- The Mumbai- Thane rationing (MTR) area covers Mumbai and urban areas of Thane like Thane, Kalyan Dombivali, Navi Mumbai, Ulhasnagar and Badlapur
- It has 18,85,811 ration cards covering 86,04,422 beneficiaries. They are serviced through about 4,200 fair price shops, which distribute 20,000 metric tonne of wheat and 13,490 metric tonne of rice every month
- Estimates suggest that while Maharashtra distributes Rs 12,000 crore of subsidised grain annually to beneficiaries under the PDS, around grain worth Rs 2,000 crore is diverted to the open market
- The Maharashtra government has equipped fair price shops with point of sale (POS) machines to disburse grain through Aadhaar enabled biometric authentication
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