The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has written to the Food and Civil Supplies Department of the Delhi Government, asking it to take steps to fulfil key provisions of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013. As it would enable transparent distribution of food grains under both NFSA and ‘Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana’ (PMGKAY) to all the beneficiaries in Delhi including the migrants through One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) plan.
“The NFSA came into force on July 5, 2013 and the Delhi Government had adopted the act from October 2013. However, compliance of the some key provisions/sections of the Act remains pending in Delhi till date section 12, 28 and 38 of the act,” the letter reads.
DK Gupta, Director (PD) further said in the letter that section 12 of the NFSA states that the Central and State Government shall endeavor to progressively undertake necessary reforms in the ‘Targeted Public Distribution System’ (TPDS) that include doorstep delivery of food grains to the TPDS outlets, application of information and communication technology tools including end-to-end computerization in order to ensure transparent recording of transactions at all levels and to prevent diversion, leveraging "Aadhaar" for unique identification, with biometric information of entitled beneficiaries for proper targeting of benefits under this act and full transparency of records.
“We have been continuously pursuing the implementation of ePoS distribution of food grains from all FPSs of Delhi for the last three years. More than 12 letters/DOs have been written to the Delhi Government from all levels. However, the distribution of food grains in Delhi is still being done using old/manual register-based mechanisms,” he said.
Further, this non-compliance is also blocking the implementation of One ‘ONORC’ for numerous migrant beneficiaries in the National Capital, he added.
Gupta further said that section 28 of the act states that every local authority as may be authorized by the State Government shall conduct periodic social audits on the functioning of Fair Price Shops, TPDS and other welfare schemes, and cause to publicise its findings and take necessary action in this regard. However, Delhi Government has not put in place any such machinery and no social audits are being conducted.
The Delhi Government has not set up vigilance committees at the FPS level which is the most important level for monitoring implementation of NFSA at the grass root levels.
Gupta further stated that directions were issued to all State Governments under Section 38 of the Act to maintain data on NFSA beneficiaries under the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) category.
“Since all the ministries are mandated to allocate a certain proportion of their fund allocation towards SC/ST welfare, data on the same is now required to be maintained to ascertain that the benefits of the Act are reaching these vulnerable Sections. The Government of Delhi in this case seems to be insensitive to needs and rights of this vulnerable section of the society and to ensure that the benefits mandated under the Act are reaching them,” he said in the letter.
The ministry has directed the Delhi Government to fulfil the pending obligations of Section-12 of the NFSA immediately and compliance to this effect may be sent back by 30th June 2021.