One Nation One Ration Card

4th February, 2022 Society

Figure 1: No Copyright Infringement Intended

Context:

The state of Chhattisgarh has become the 35th to implement the "One Nation, One Ration Card" programme. A evaluation conducted by the Department of Food and Public Distribution to analyses the scheme's nationwide implementation determined the scheme's benefits.

Under the ‘One Nation, One Ration Card’ system, the beneficiary will be able to buy subsidised food grains from any FPS across the country.
It will identify a beneficiary through biometric authentication on electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) devices installed at the FPSs.
Integrated Management of Public Distribution System (IM-PDS) portal provides the technological platform for the inter-state portability of ration cards.

For national portability, the state governments have been asked to issue the ration card in bi-lingual format having local language along with English or Hindi.
10-digit standard ration card number, wherein first two digits will be state code and the next two digits will be running ration card numbers.
A set of another two digits will be appended with ration card number to create unique member IDs for each member of the household in a ration card.

Beneficial for migrant workers as they will be able to access the food grains from across the India.
Target the prevailing hunger and urban poverty.
Universal access to food grains
Empowerment of Consumers as they will have choice to choose the fair price shop. It will give voice and Choice to consumers leading to enhanced accountability.
Provide stronger data on status of migration in India which will help in making data driven policies.

Seeding with Aadhar card has witnessed exclusion error which can get amplified at national level with little scope of grievance redressal.
Logistics issues as FPS receive the quota based on the beneficiary enrolled at the shop.
ON-ORC will affect how the financial burden is shared between states.
The larger issues of federalism and inter-state coordination: Many states are not convinced about a “one size fits all” regime because they have customised the PDS through higher subsidies, higher entitlement limits, and supply of additional items.
Technological Challenges: ON-ORC requires a complex technology backbone that brings over 750 million beneficiaries, 5, 33,000 ration shops and 54 million tonnes of food-grain annually on a single platform.

Centre could provide an assurance like guaranteed compensation (as seen in GST) to “net inbound migration” states such as Maharashtra and Kerala that any additional costs on account of migrants will be covered by it for the five years.
Government could create a specific council like GST council for inter-state coordination.
Technological challenges could be overcome by developing the platform like GSTN for this scheme.
The Nilekani-led task force recommended setting up of a PDS network (PDSN) to track movement of rations, register beneficiaries, issue ration cards, handle grievances and generate analytics.