Pain points of portability

Earlier last week, the Supreme Court had instructed all the states and Union Territories to implement the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme by July 31. It had also instructed the Centre to provide migrant workers with free supplies of dry rations until the COVID situation prevails. The demands have garnered momentum in the backdrop of the pandemic in India, which witnessed the displacement of millions of migrant labourers from cities.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had recently spoken about the completion of six years of the Digital India mission, had drawn our attention to how initiatives like the ONORC scheme have benefitted from India’s digitisation drive. Although, the scheme had originated back in 2011, when a task force chaired by Nandan Nilekani was appointed to understand how direct cash transfers of subsidies could be carried out. The task force, later on, took the responsibility of digitising India’s Public Distribution System (PDS). As far as the end-user is concerned, ONORC depends on a tripod of features including the ration card, Aadhaar and ePOS systems. The supportive backend is made up of the Integrated Management of Public Distribution System (IM-PDS) portal, which takes care of the inter-state transactions, and Annavitran portal, which handles inter/intra district transactions.

Portability on this scale will help migrant workers and families purchase subsidised ration from any of the 5.4 lakh fair price shops anywhere in India under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013. The system allows migrants and families to separately purchase their foodgrain entitlements even if the breadwinners, are located away from their hometowns. Under the NFSA, 81 crore individuals are entitled to purchase foodgrains at the subsidised cost of Rs 3/kg for rice, Rs 2/kg for wheat and Rs 1/kg for coarse grains. As of date, 32 states and Union Territories have been onboarded, which will benefit 69 crore NFSA beneficiaries. Delhi, West Bengal, Assam, and Chhattisgarh are the only four states yet to join the ONORC. Delhi has lagged in the setting up of ePOS systems in fair price shops which happens to be one of the prerequisites for implementation of ONORC. As many as 4.74 lakh fair price shops nationally have implemented the ePOS systems. On the other hand, states like West Bengal have demanded that non-NFSA ration cards, or cards supplied by the respective state governments should also be covered under the ambit of ONORC.

But other challenges are being faced in the rollout of the ONORC, the primary one being the absence of a credible real-time database of migrant workers. The Supreme Court had directed the Centre to create a portal in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre for the registration of the workers employed in the unorganised sector, that would enable them to avail of their welfare schemes. To top it off, it is estimated that 100 per cent of ration cards have still not been linked to Aadhaar. India’s PDS also suffers from flaws in storage and distribution that sees a whopping 40% of leakage of all foodgrains under the network. Duplication of data, as well as missing data, incorrect inclusions and exclusions are also major pain points when it comes to the implementation of ONORC.

Both the Centre and the states have a massive task ahead of them in making ONORC a success. But this is one reform, which when implemented, will help those in need, including labourers, daily wagers, rag pickers and street dwellers get their daily quota of food grains at any fair price shop across the country. And that’s the only fair thing to do for those who have been hit the hardest by the pandemic.