When the ruling BJD has started hitting the streets raking up the issue if kerosene quota cut for the State by the Centre, a glaring fact that pops up on the face of Odisha is that the State sees a whopping 46 per cent of PDS kerosene being diverted to the open market. Moreover, nearly half (47 per cent) of kerosene retailers in the State didn’t deliver the PDS kerosene quota almost on a regular basis.
According to a study done by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in 2015, only 47 per cent of households in Odisha received their PDS kerosene quota on a regular basis (every month). On the contrary, as many as 53 per cent household failed to get their allotted PDS kerosene on a monthly basis. The State puts up a poor show as in Bihar and Jharkhand nearly 56 per cent of households get the due PDS kerosene entitlement almost on a regular basis, reveals the study.
Significantly, the CEEW study found that a high of 15 per cent households in Oidhsa got kerosene for three months only and another 15 per cent received the kerosene quota in four to six months. The study also found that as most households didn’t know the mandated quota per ration card, retailers very easily diverted the kerosene to open market. The result: At least 18 per cent of respondents termed the PDS kerosene distribution network in the State as a corrupt system.
Virtually quantifying the diversion, another study done by IIT Delhi researcher Prankur Gupta, which is based on consumption of kerosene in Odisha basing on the National Sample Survey (NSS) 2011-12 consumption data vis-a-vis the off-take of PDS kerosene by the State, has estimated a leakage in PDS kerosene distribution to the tune of a whopping 45.7 per cent as per a detailed table available with The Pioneer.
Another interesting fact that came to fore in the above context looks somewhat glaring as Odisha is the only State where the total ration cards owners have seen a high rise of over 26 per cent in 2015 to touch 1.07 crore from around 85 lakh in 2014. On the contrary, while neighbour West Bengal witnessed no rise, Chhattisgarh saw a reduction of around 10 per cent in ration card owners in 2015.
Significantly, the latest data available on per capita (total kerosene allocated vis-a-vis the population) kerosene consumption in Odisha in 2016-17 has been provisionally estimated at over 6 litre compared to around 9.3 litre during the period 2013-16.