Village Mukhiyas, school headmasters and Anganwadi Sevikas will soon monitor the functioning of Public Distribution System (PDS) in rural Jharkhand and highlight anomalies in the distribution of food grains to villagers, State Food and Civil Supplies Minister Saryu Roy said on Sunday.
Food and Civil Supplies Department has decided to constitute independent committees to monitor the functioning of each of the PDS shops operating in the villages. These committees, Roy said, will include the headmaster of the nearest Government school, the village Mukhiya or a member of the Panchayat and a local Anganwadi Sevika. “Since Anganwadi Sevikas, local academicians and village representatives are well aware of the challenges faced by villagers in obtaining food grains from PDS shops, they will be in a better position to highlight anomalies and take them up with higher authorities,” said Roy.
The decision has been taken in the backdrop of growing number of complaints against PDS dealers, accusing them of stealing grains from the share of beneficiaries. The committees will independently probe such cases and regularly submit reports. “Often villagers complain that out of their share of five Kilogram of food grains, the PDS dealers only provide four kilogram and sell the remaining one Kilogram in the market to make profits. The committees’ main purpose will be to identify such dealers and report about their practice to the higher authorities,” Roy said.
The Department has written to the Deputy Commissioners and District Supply Officers of all the 24 districts in Jharkhand, asking them to constitute the committees at the earliest. “Our idea is to have one monitoring committee for each of the 26,000 PDS stores in the State,” said Roy.
Similar committees called School Management Committees (SMC) have been successfully monitoring the Midday Meal (MDM) scheme of the Centre in all the Government schools in Jharkhand. Sources from the Food and Civil Supplies Department said that the idea of constituting monitoring committees for PDS stores was inspired by the success of SMCs in the State.
The PDS dealers here provide 35 Kg rice every month free of cost to Particularly Vulnerable Tribe Groups (PVTG), 25Kg rice to BPL families and 5Kg rice to each beneficiary under NFSA at the price of Re.1 per Kg. At least 2000 PDS stores here are functioning offline, where beneficiaries can get their ration even without internet connection of biometric identification. Any Government approved identity proof is acceptable at these shops.
Besides, the Government is also planning to introduce Ration Card portability in order to allow beneficiaries to take their share of ration from any PDS store across the State.