PDS is still the best option for poor- It has to be streamlined, not given up
By R. Suryamurthy
India’s public distribution system (PDS)—a sprawling, decades-old welfare mechanism that feeds 81 crore people—has managed to sustain an extraordinary scale of operations. Month after month, through pandemics, inflation shocks and erratic procurement cycles, the system delivers subsidised or free foodgrains to two-thirds of the country’s population. On the surface, this continuity appears reassuring, even admirable.
But beneath that seeming stability lies a more troubling reality. A recent parliamentary report, tabled on December 4, reveals a system increasingly creaking under the weight of delayed reforms, lagging digitisation, neglected infrastructure, and patchwork planning. What emerges is not the picture of a robust, future-ready food-security apparatus but of a machine held together by muscle memory, ad-hoc fixes and a dangerous tolerance for structural fragility.
And for a food-security system serving 81 crore people, these gaps are not minor operational wrinkles; they are early warnings of systemic stress—signals that India can ill afford to ignore.
Consider the government’s marquee reform: the Scheme for Modernisation and Reforms through Technology in PDS (SMART-PDS). Announced as a transformative shift towards real-time monitoring, integrated ration-card management, and transparent supply-chain tracking, the scheme was to be implemented across all States and Union Territories by March 2026 with a modest but meaningful outlay of ₹349.9 crore. Yet, halfway through the implementation window, the reform appears stuck firmly in first gear.
Only four States and UTs—Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Maharashtra—have completed the new ration-card and Fair Price Shop modules. The distribution module has reached a mere dozen States, many of them small or Northeastern. The allocation-and-supply-chain module—the central nervous system of the entire reform—has been rolled out in only four regions. Tamil Nadu, a major NFSA State, has not even signed the Memorandum of Understanding.
What this means in practice is the emergence of a digitally uneven PDS—one where some States inch towards modernisation while others remain anchored in legacy systems with limited accountability.
For a country that speaks the language of “real-time dashboards” and “end-to-end visibility,” the reform’s progress raises an uncomfortable question: Is the government’s digital appetite outstripping its implementation capacity?
Digitisation is only one piece of the puzzle. The PDS rests fundamentally on the physical act of moving, storing and distributing grains. Here too, the report exposes glaring structural weaknesses.
The Food Corporation of India (FCI) today operates with 147 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of its own storage capacity but relies on 261.09 LMT of hired capacity—nearly double its owned stock. The government insists hiring is cheaper and more flexible. The problem is that this claim rests on virtually no empirical evaluation.
Incredibly, there has never been a comprehensive, nationwide comparison of the costs of rented versus owned storage. At a time when rental liabilities run into thousands of crores annually, this absence is not merely an oversight—it is a policy void.
The Standing Committee’s observation is blunt: a system dealing with such massive volumes cannot operate on untested assumptions. It demands a rigorous financial analysis of storage economics. The government’s response—forming a three-member committee—feels like an early step in what should have begun years ago.
When India’s food-security architecture depends so heavily on hired infrastructure, the lack of hard cost-data amounts to flying blind. The problem is not only what India rents, but what it fails to build.
Under the Central Sector Scheme “Storage & Godowns”, targets have been missed for four consecutive years. The numbers are stark:2023–24: Target 50,100 MT; achieved 1,760 MT; 2024–25 (as of Jan): Target 58,540 MT; achieved barely 1,000 MT.
The explanations—difficult terrain, prolonged monsoons, land acquisition hurdles—sound familiar, almost ritualistic. But the Committee rightly points out that these constraints are not surprises; they are long-known realities of India’s geography and administrative landscape. To frame them as new obstacles is to mask poor planning.
Several sites remain stuck due to missing environmental clearances, litigation, or even erroneous soil assessments that should have been flagged at the feasibility stage. In other words, the delays are less about uncontrollable complications and more about predictable, avoidable lapses.
In a system where grain must be stored before it is moved, and moved before it is distributed, infrastructure delays represent not just construction gaps—they represent future crises waiting to manifest.
Transit losses—a historical leak point—have fallen from ₹401.76 crore in 2022–23 to ₹188.66 crore in 2024–25 (till January). This is good news. Stronger seals, LDPE sheets, and tighter inspections have worked.
Yet the Committee is unconvinced the gains are enough. India still moves nearly 600 LMT of grain each year. Even small percentage losses translate into massive quantities of food. The report urges more ambitious technological upgrades—temperature and humidity controls, modernised transport fleets, and real-time monitoring.
The government’s response? It has no such plans. This inertia is baffling. Large volumes of rice move through high-moisture corridors where spoilage is not a hypothetical risk—it is a lived reality. The unwillingness to upgrade transport reflects a mindset that sees transit losses as an acceptable cost of doing business rather than a profound inefficiency in a system built to serve the poorest.
The report does credit the government for maintaining NFSA and PMGKAY distribution, particularly through the pandemic. Out of the ₹2.05 lakh crore allocated for 2024–25, ₹1.81 lakh crore has already been released—evidence of strong financial throughput.
But the Committee also cautions that sheer spending is not the same as effective delivery. Fund utilisation, it argues, remains tracked through routine accounting rather than rigorous performance indicators. Without granular metrics, leakages, inefficiencies, and misallocations remain hidden in plain sight.
In short, the system works—but it works without precision. The shift to steel silos—modern, airtight, loss-resistant—is a much-needed reform. Of the planned 23.25 LMT capacity, about 17.75 LMT has been built. But even here, the expansion appears driven by project-level feasibility rather than a national mapping of storage gaps.
The Committee argues that silo construction must prioritise wheat-consuming States and regions with storage deficits—not areas where private concessionaires find it easiest to operate. Unless aligned with the geography of need, silo construction risks becoming yet another scattered intervention lacking strategic coherence.
What links all these disparate findings—delayed digitisation, inadequate godowns, missing cost-analysis, ignored transit vulnerabilities—is a deeper story: the PDS is quietly drifting into structural fragility.
The warning signs are not dramatic; they are incremental. They appear as delayed clearances, half-built warehouses, unsigned MoUs, missing data, mismatched capacity, and administrative ambivalence. But together, they point to a system relying on its sheer historical momentum rather than on strengthened design.
Food security rarely collapses in a single moment; it fails slowly, through hundreds of ignored red flags. India’s PDS today carries precisely those early warning signals.
The Committee’s report is not simply a critique—it is a wake-up call. A system feeding 81 crore people cannot be allowed to slip into a state where its most critical functions hinge on outdated infrastructure, incomplete digital pathways, and unquestioned assumptions.
SMART-PDS cannot remain a half-built platform. Storage cannot remain a guessing game. Transport cannot remain technologically static. And the government cannot respond to structural questions with ad-hoc committees and procedural assurances.
India stands at a point where food-security reform demands urgency, coherence, and the political will to treat systemic stress as seriously as it treats fiscal outlays. The PDS has carried the country for decades. It can continue to do so—but only if policymakers recognise that a system designed fifty years ago cannot power the next fifty without unapologetically deep reforms. Ignoring the warning lights is no longer an option. (IPA Service)
