West Singhbhum Department of Food & Public Distribution Jharkhand
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Second Quarter Report (July-Sep 2019) On Concurrent Evaluation of Implementation of National Food Security Act in Jharkhand Deoghar & West Singhbhum Department of Food & Public Distribution Jharkhand Sponsored By CONDUCTED BY XAVIER INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SERVICE Dr. Camil Bulcke Path (Purulia Road) Ranchi, Jharkhand October 2019 ACKNOWLEDGMENT This Concurrent Evaluation team of XISS is duty bound to express gratitude to the people and officials of District Deoghar & West Singhbhum of Jharkhand for their assistance. First of all, we must thank the Secretary Food, & Public Distribution Mr. Ravikant; Joint Secretary (BP & PD) Mr. Pramod Kr. Tiwari; Deputy Director-General, Evaluation NITI Aayog, Mr. Rakesh Ranjan; AS & FA (Steel) Addl. Charge (Dept. of Food & PD) Ms. Saraswati Prasad and Economic Advisor Mr. Nilambuj Sharan for their guidance's & support. We thank in a special way to Mr. Thomas Dung Dung Joint Secretary, Department of Food & Civil Supplies, Govt. of Jharkhand. Mr. Praveen Kumar Prakash, District Supply Officer, Deoghar & Mr. Jaideep Tigga, District Supply Officer of West Singhbhum. The data that was needed for the monitoring/evaluation was made available by them. The Officials were willing to go out of their way to help. It is but natural to express our gratitude to each and every one we met in Jharkhand with respect to Concurrent Evaluation. Akash Bhuinya Xavier Institute of Social Service, Dr.Camil Bulcke Path, Ranchi, 834001, Jharkhand XISS/RANCHI/Concurrent Evaluation of NFSA- Jharkhand i TABLE OF CONTENTS Page No. Acknowledgment i List of Tables iii Executive Summary iv-vi Chapter I - Introduction 1-3 Chapter II - Description of study area 4-5 Chapter III - Beneficiary selection and ration card management 6-9 Chapter IV - Fair Price Shop Management 10-17 Chapter V - Supply Chain Management and door step delivery 18-19 Chapter VI - Access to food grain entitlement and FPS automation 20-23 Chapter VII - Grievance Redressal System 24 Chapter VIII - Vigilance committee and social audit 25 Chapter IX - Digital Payment 26-27 Chapter X - Key Recommendations and Suggestions 28 Annexure I - Checklist for Nodal Officers. 29-30 Annexure II - Fact Sheet - Deoghar 31-36 Annexure-III - Fact Sheet – West Singhbhum 37-42 XISS/RANCHI/Concurrent Evaluation of NFSA- Jharkhand ii List of Tables Page No. 1.1 Quarterly Sample plan 2 2.1 General information about the State and districts 5 2.2 District wise studied villages with sample size 5 3.1 Distance travel for applying, addition/ deletion of member 6-7 3.2 Awareness among beneficiaries 7-8 3.3(a) Aadhar, bank a/c and mobile seeding in ration card 8 3.3(b) Reason for not seeding mobile no. and bank a/c with ration card 9 4.1 FPS dealer ownership 10 4.2 Service delivery 10-11 4.3 Number of opening days of FPS quality of service delivery 11 4.4 Accessibility and cleanliness of FPS 12 4.5 Availability of online data and transportation charge 12 4.6 PDS items received after first week and time gap for receiving 13 commission 4.7 Margin/commission received by FPS dealer per month 14 4.8(a) One-time expenditure incurred by FPS dealer 14 4.8(b) Monthly expenditure incurred 15 4.9(a) Installation and use of e-POS at FPS 15 4.9(b) Quantity of food grains sold last month through e-PoS (in Kg) 16 4.9(c) Alternate option in case of failure, no. of visit and time taken in one 16-17 transaction in e-Pos machine 5.1 Storage capacity and adequacy 19 6.1 Entitlement under NFSA to beneficiaries 20-21 6.2(a) Food grain (rice) consumed by beneficiary HHs (in kg) 21 6.2(b) Preferred share of food grains 22 6.3 Facilities to old and Differently abled people 23 9.1 Reasons for not preferring Cash Subsidy in the Bank Account 26 XISS/RANCHI/Concurrent Evaluation of NFSA- Jharkhand iii Executive Summary 1. Introduction The current study entitled ‘Second Quarter Report on Concurrent Evaluation of the Implementation of National Food Security Act in Jharkhand’ is a part of the ongoing national level Concurrent Evaluation on the Implementation of National Food Security Act, (NFSA) 2013 being conducted by different monitoring institutes. This study took place in two districts of Jharkhand namely Deoghar and West Singhbhum. Five (5) FPS (Fair Price Shops) comprising of Four (4) rural FPS and one (1) urban FPS was visited in the month of October this year. The objective of this study is to assess the systematic implementation of NFSA and benefits received by the targeted beneficiaries. 2. Beneficiary selection and ration card management In both the districts it was observed that beneficiaries lacked the knowledge about the eligibility criteria of availing PHH/AAY cards. There is an online system in place for applying for new ration cards or to modify details in ration cards, but most of the interviewed beneficiaries were unaware of any such facility. The major difficulties faced by the beneficiaries in applying for new ration cards or to modify details were lack of knowledge of online facilities. It was also observed that currently the process of issuance of new ration cards has been stopped temporarily in the state citing to excess issuance of ration cards in the past. The ration card management system in the state has been digitized and the details of each ration cards can be viewed through the online portal of the state. Since there is a lack of knowledge among beneficiaries about the online facilities there should have been campaign for ICE (Information, Communication and Education) for the beneficiaries especially in rural areas but no such campaign has been reported by the beneficiaries. 3. Access to food grain entitlements and FPS automation Among the 150 interviewed beneficiaries none of them expressed disappointment regarding the access and availability of the food grains to them. It was also found that PDS food grains meet almost half the requirements of the households. None of the beneficiaries had any problem with the quality of the food grains provided to them, but since in rural FPS of the state rice is only provide many beneficiaries demanded that wheat should also be given to them in some shares. It was reported that most FPS shops were open for 3 to 3.5 weeks in a month and none of the beneficiaries complained against the days and hours of opening of the FPS. No FPS dealer reported that they received any training and only a small demo was giving to them by the e-Pos distributing company when the machine was initially distributed to them. Since, e-Pos are used in the state for distributing food grains there is a system in place for authenticating the beneficiary using fingerprints, and if there is a authentication problem the OTP is used for verifying the beneficiary. Electronic Weighing machines were found to be used at many FPS and godowns but they are not connected to the e-Pos or online in anyway. Hindi voice and printed slip are available but they are not available in the local languages. A printed transaction slip is provided at all FPS but no micro-ATM facility is available for cashless transaction and there is no Banking Correspondent and Common XISS/RANCHI/Concurrent Evaluation of NFSA- Jharkhand iv Service Centre facility available in these FPS. For security purposes the dealer has to use his/her fingerprint for biometric authentication to get access to e-Pos machines. The dealer ensures that beneficiaries’ finger is clean and correctly placed on the scanner but no best finger detection system was found to be used. It was also observed that there is no formal system in place for home delivery/nomination of other to take food grins for old, infirm and physically challenged beneficiaries but informally people and the dealer help such beneficiaries regularly, so none of the beneficiaries complained of any such instance where they faced difficulty to take food grains. Due to the introduction of e-Pos machines all the transaction is transparently reflected in the state portal in real time. 4. Supply Chain and FPS viability It was found that there was no delay in receiving stock from FCI godown to district godown. The district godown receives their stock by 30th of the month and by the 1st of the next month, godowns receive the SIO (Store Issue Order). However, it was observed that sometimes there was a delay in distributing rations to respective FPS from the godowns due to the problem of transportation which is on contract. The stock is monthly sent to the FPS and it reaches FPS on 10-15 of the month and generally most ration is distributed among the beneficiaries from 20-21 of the month. Beneficiaries do have the freedom to lift their food grains of the previous month. It was observed that the state is seriously suffering from the lack of manpower at crucial supply chain at both Block and District level. In both the districts it was found that at Block level in most of the Block the BDO (Block Development Officer) has been given additional work to look after the Supply Chain. There is no post of Food Inspector in the state which is crucial to ensure the supply chain and maintain transparency. There is no facility reported by the beneficiaries and the FPS dealer where SMS alerts are sent to them for alerting them about arrival of food grains. The release order, gate passes, truck challans, etc are generated online but they are only partially online and there is no strict enforcement of the same.