Nothing public about PDS
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 21, 2012 -
No longer seen : Mobile SK oil sellers :: Pix - TSE
The irony is striking. In a place characterised by institutional collapse, the institutionali-sation of corruption is complete and has taken deep roots.
The hand responsible for manipulating the PDS from a Public Distribution System to a Private Distribution System is corruption. Implemented to ensure food security by supplying essential items at highly subsidised rates to the poorer section of the people, the PDS is however anything but a system to ensure food security to the needy people.
On the contrary it has only succeeded in lining the pockets of the influential few, who in cahoots with the Babudom and the political class, have been milking the poorer section of the population to the point of deprivation and starvation.
And so instead of the essential commodities being made available to the intended people at Government approved rates, the same is sold at exorbitant rates in the 'open' black market.
Such a state necessitates the clandestine formation of a clique who go on to spread out and weave a system to beat the system known as the PDS and nowhere is this more apparent than the emergence of a fuel cartel.
It also goes without saying that such a system cannot exist and survive without some sort of a political patronage coupled with the active support of the Babudom and the reason why Ana Hazare managed to capture the imagination of so many people across the country some time back does not appear all that surprising.
Coming out with innovative ideas to beat the system has its own meaning in a place where the only strong institutionalised facet of public life is corruption and thus while a PDS item like kerosene oil is practically out of the reach of the common people, it is available in plenty at the hands of the dealers.
The compulsion wrought by the chain of hoarding, selling at highly inflated rate, the impregnable clique etc has ensured that kerosene is no longer the poor man's fuel, selling as it does at the rate of anywhere between Rs 50 and Rs 100 per litre in the black market.
It is not that there is an emergency in place and it is certainly not the case of the refinery shutting shop. It is much more than this. It is a case of the fuel sharks, with the blessings of their political masters, surreptitiously selling off the subsidised item at highly hiked rates.
It is a case of hoarding the PDS item and waiting for the opportune moment to sell them off when it would fetch a bigger profit margin.
It is because of this that dealers have still not fully lifted the allocated share of 2112 Kls of the fuel from the depot for the month of June. Hoarding has meant that the storage tanks of the dealers are still not in a position to take in the share of the current month, which in turn means that the May quota has not been distributed to the intended public.
A case of daylight robbery which can be possible only with the blessings of the powers that be. The process of stripping the 'public persona' from the PDS is complete and effectively at that.
The institutionalisation of corruption has transformed the public part of the PDS to a system to line and fatten the bank balance of some private individuals.
Corruption has exacted a heavy toll and from K-oil this has also manifested itself in different forms, including the emergence of numerous fly by night operators who may take refuge under the pseudonym of some highly patriotic sounding names.
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