Outrage over irregularities in food-grain distribution
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: June 05, 2021 -

AMID the public outrage over alleged irregularities in the distribution of rice allotted to the state under the National Food Security Act and the Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), the Centre has issued an advisory to all states and UTs to identify and issue ration cards to the most vulnerable and economically weaker sections of society to ensure their coverage under the NFSA.

As reported, the Centre's directive is based on various reports that the poorest of the poor are in dire need of food-grains but they are unable to procure ration card.

According to the food ministry's advisory, states and union territories have scope to add coverage of 1.97 crore families under the NFSA while only 14 states have completed 100 per cent coverage quota, which technically implies that majority of the states, whose citizens are deprived of the Centre's noble scheme, have been inordinately delaying the process for issuing relevant documents or the necessary Aadhaar linkage.

Though the poor citizens' ignorance on the importance of possessing Aadhaar cards and lack of necessary initiatives by the authorised officials to prepare the same for the most deserving section of the population seem to be the root cause for compounding miseries of the people in this crisis situation, in Manipur's context the controversies over the food-grain distribution has more to do with the rationing agents deducting share of the legitimate beneficiaries citing implausible circumstances as well as starting and ceasing the distribution within short notice, not to speak of political overtures by the rationing agents.

Most citizens who are deprived of the benefits of the government-sponsored scheme generally tolerate indiscreet conduct of the rationing agents in case there is no adverse situation.

However, such sympathetic gestures toward the food-grain distributors, who are usually nominated by the incumbent MLAs, are understandably non-existent when people face dire situation such as the on-going Covid-19 pandemic.

For instance, maximum number of incidents of heated arguments and physical confrontations between the beneficiaries and the rationing agents mostly reported from assembly constituencies which have no MLAs due to disqualification or court rulings ousting the highest recipients of votes and replacing them with the closest opponents mid-way into the five-year term corroborate indelible involvement of politics in the food distribution mechanism.

Fortunately, public disenchantment over irregularities in provision of NFSA rice has so far been limited to only a handful of assembly segments.

Though politics over the food-grain distribution system is certain to persist, it would be grossly inhumane to deny the poor deserving citizens their rightful share of the staple food item.

While linkage of Aadhaar and ration cards led to gradual deletion of the covetous individuals such as government employees who had been reaping the benefits for years, the same system unable to cover the poor betrays the very purpose of the noble scheme.

Thus, authorities concerned must implement the food ministry's directive to ensure coverage of all eligible identified persons from the most vulnerable and economically weakest sections of population under the centrally-sponsored schemes so as to avoid recurrence of more embarrassing situation and to validate the "citizen-centric governance" slogan.