Proposals to replace family ration cards with individual cards and fixing uniform price for food products at ration shops were suggested today by MPs, who sought to examine why starvation deaths occurred in the country despite surplus grains.The suggestions came primarily from CPI-M member Somnath Chatterjee at an all-party meeting convened by the Prime Minister on restructuring the Public Distribution System for the poor to get subsidised food. The PM had promised this meeting during the winter session of the Parliament. Today, Vajpayee and Deputy PM L.K. Advani attended the two-and-half-hour meeting with Ministers Sushma Swaraj, Yashwant Sinha and Sharad Yadav.Somnath Chatterjee said the BPL (below poverty line) and APL (Above poverty line) slabs need to be joined. At present, APL consumers find that flour and rice from ration shops are priced higher than the market while BPL consumers don’t have enough money to buy in bulk.This has been identified as the main problem behind the low grain off-takes by the states. If the Centre agrees to Chatterjee’s suggestions, families would get ration cards and the poor would not be forced to buy in bulk. The Left parties asked the Government to make cheap rations available for migrant labourers who can’t access the PDS now. Vajpayee admitted: ‘‘We are not sure that every deserving consumer is receiving foodgrains under PDS.’’ Briefing mediapersons, Food Minister Sharad Yadav said the Centre would convene a meeting of CMs to streamline PDS. He said the Centre was involved in procuring, storing and moving grains from one state to another. As identification of beneficiaries was left to states, their cooperation was needed, said the Minister.The MPs, however, pulled up the Centre for its ‘inexplicable’ expenditure in stocking and movement of food. They wondered why the Centre was spending the bulk of Rs 28,000 crore food subsidy on logistics since only Rs 600 crore reaches the poor.India with about 4.75 lakh ration shops is supposed to have the largest public distribution system in the world. Yadav said: ‘‘It was not easy to remove all the anomalies which had crept into the system over the years.’’ He said the government was open to suggestions for the involvement of panchayats and local groups to monitor PDS.
