RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Aug.21: Despite a change of guard in the state, irregularities in the distribution of food grain through the public distribution system could not be overcome.
A recent study by a voluntary organization, Khadya Suraksha Janadhikar Manch, in West Singhbhum suggests so.
The study was done taking Jharkhand Green Ration Card 2021, which was provided to those poor who do not have any ration card and their application of ration card is either under process.
Holders of these cards are supposed to get 5kg grain per person from a PDS shop.
During the study, as many as 709 cardholders of 54 villages of seven blocks of West Singhbhum were contacted in July 2021. The blocks included Chakradharpur, Hat Gamharia, Sonua, Khutpani, Tonko, Tantnagar and Goelkera. It was found that only 22 percent of the cardholders got a ration of April to July while 21 percent of cardholders got a ration of one month.
As many as 6.5 percent cardholders did not have any ration.
The study suggested that out of 709 cardholders, only 10 have cards in their possession while cards of the remaining others are in the possession of dealers.
Notably, in a recently held meeting of Disha, a body formed to ensure better coordination among all the elected representatives in parliament, state legislature, and local government, at Sri Krishna Institute of Public Administration (SKIPA) several loopholes in the PDS system were pointed out.
In the meeting presided over by union tribal affairs minister Arjun Munda, Ranchi MLA C.P.Singh supported by Silli Sudesh Mahto said that in Jharkhand capital out of allotted ration, some of the quantity is grabbed by dealers in the name of transportation charge and other expenses.
Munda had taken strong exception and had directed the concerned officer to take care and do a surprise inspection.
Earlier in February this year, a study done by J-PAL had suggested that 90 percent of ration cards deleted during the BJP rule belonged to real households and deletion was wrong.
The JPAL study, co-authored by eminent economists Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus and Sandip Sukhtankar, included a careful analysis of ration card deletion between 2016 and 2018 in 10 randomly-selected districts of Jharkhand.
The study concluded that as many as 1.44 lakh ration cards were deleted in these 10 districts between 2016 and 2018. The number of deleted cards was about 6% of all ration cards in these districts.
The study suggested that cards not linked with Aadhaar accounted for 56% of deleted cards and 9% of all ration cards.
In a random sample of nearly 4,000 ration cards that were verified, it was found that almost 90% of the deleted ration cards belonged to real households. Just over10% belonged to “ghosts”, i.e. households that could not be traced.
The same study estimates that ghosts accounted for “at most 3% of [PDS] beneficiaries” before ration cards were deleted. The mass deletion of ration cards was the equivalent of the proverbial sledgehammer used to crack a nut – it fell hard on thousands of poor people like Santoshi Kumari, an 11 yr old girl who died of starvation.
