Piyush Goyal Asks States To Implement SMART-PDS System

Food and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday has asked the stated to implement the SMART-PDS system, which is technology driven initiative and need of hour. He said this while addressing states’ food minister in a conference. He emphasised on a transparent and accountable system, aimed at reducing human intervention and promoting automation in the existing process.

Goyal also added that transparency is our utmost priority for the free supply chain of foodgrains under public distribution system. he also said that ‘we are upgrading the warehouses of Food Corporation of India into five-star rated ones and state should also follow the suit.’ He also discussed the issues related to procurement of millets and its usage among the beneficiaries under ‘Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna’, in the meeting. The pending claims of the states were also discussed and he said that it will be done on the priority basis and will be settled immediately.

He praised the states for adopting the millets schemes like ICDS, mid-day meal and PDS in Karnataka which is helping an promoting the healthy diet and adding the nutrition.

The expected procurement of coarse grains or millets is 7.50 LMT during the Kharif marketing season of 2022-23 (Kharif & Rabi) as against actual procurement of 6.30 LMT during Kharif marketing season of 2021-22.

Karnataka will procure 6 LMT millets (5 LMT Ragi and 1 LMT Jowar) in Kharif season of 2022-23.

What is SMART-PDS?

The full form of the SMART-PDS (Scheme for Modernization and Reforms through Technology in Public Distribution System). It is a system where smart ration cards are issue to the beneficiaries of public distribution system, and ration is distributed through a fair price shop after showing the smart ration card by any member of the beneficiary family. this will be embedded with the fingerprints of the beneficiary, which will record all the transactions.

The objective of the SMART-PDS System

The aim of the system is to build an automatic and convenient system to protect the public interest and malpractices. this will in return reduce the widespread corruption, misuses of cards and to reduce the complexity of the manual data entries.

How PDS is operated?

Joint Responsibility of state and centre: The Central Government and the State/UT Governments share oversight of PDS. The Food Corporation of India (FCI), a subsidiary of the Central Government, is in charge of procuring, storing, transporting, and allocating food grains in bulk to the State Governments.

Operational Responsibility: The operational responsibility including allocation within State, identification of eligible families, issue of Ration Cards and supervision of the functioning of Fair Price Shops (FPSs) etc., rest with the State Governments.

Commodity Wise Distribution: Under the PDS, presently the commodities namely wheat, rice, sugar and kerosene are being allocated to the States/UTs for distribution. Some States/UTs also distribute additional items of mass consumption through the PDS outlets such as pulses, edible oils, iodized salt, spices etc.

PDS with the focus of distribution of the food grains in urban areas was initiated in 1960s. The national agricultural production is grown after the Green Revolution.