CONCURRENT EVALUATION OF Implementation OF NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY ACT, 2013 IN KERALA - MALAPPURAM AND THRISSUR DISTRICTS Monitoring Institution University of Kerala September 2019 Report prepared by: Nodal officer : Dr. Manju S. Nair (Professor, Department of Economics, University of Kerala) Committee Members : Dr.Prasad A.K. (Professor, University of Kerala) Dr.G.Raju, Professor and Head, Department of Commerce, University of Kerala Technical Assistants : Ancy John Table of Content Introduction 7 1.1 NFSA in Kerala 8 1.2 Distribution of Ration Cards 8 1.3 Objectives and scope of the study 10 11 1.4 Sample selection and timelines 11 1.5 Data collection and analysis 11 1.6 Limitations of the study 12 1.7 Executive Summary Chapter 2 12 2.1 Description of study area/sample 17 2.2 Beneficiary selection and ration card management 20 2.3 Quality of data- Aadhar, mobile and bank account seeding 23 Chapter 3 25 3.1 Fair Price Shop Profile 25 3.2 Accessibility 26 3.3 Quality of storage 26 26 3.4 Viability of Operations 27 3.5 Revenue details of the FPS 28 3.6 Commission of FPS 30 3.8 Expenditure details of FPS dealer 31 3.9 Profit and loss of FPS dealer (July) 33 3.10 Issues with use of e-POS 33 3.11 Biometric Authentication status of the sample beneficiaries 34 Chapter 4 37 4.1 Godown 37 Chapter 5 41 5.1 Percentage off take by households in the sample FPS 44 5.2 Food grain quantity purchase and price vis-à-vis entitlements 49 5.3 Perception of beneficiaries about quality of food grains 44 51 5.4 Timely availability of food grains 56 5.5 Consumption of food grain by households 56 and share of PDS food 59 5.6 Nature of subsidy and functioning of FPS 60 5.7 Enhancing activities of FPS 5.8 Coverage under portability 60 Chapter 6 67 6.1 Key Findings of the Study 66 6.2 Recommendations 71 ANNEXURE List of Tables Sl.No Table No Title 1 1.1 Category-wise Distribution Details of Food Grains under NFSA 2 2. 1 Gender of Household Head 3 2. 2 Characteristics of Household members 4 2. 3 Occupation pattern of the head of the household 5 2. 4 Number of eldest women recognized as head of the household in the NFSA Ration card 6 2.5 Awareness of the eligibility criteria for availing benefits 7 2.6 Awareness regarding process of modification of ration card 8 2.7 Level of awareness of procedure among ration card holders 9 2.8 Satisfaction level of card holders 10 2.9 Status of Aadhar and ration card seeding 11 2.10 Status of Aadhar and Mobile number seeding 12 2.11 Mobile number and ration card seeding 13 3.1 Profile of Fair Price Shops 14 3.2 Off take of Sample FPS (July) 15 3.3 Commission received by the sample FPS in July) 16 3.4 Total Revenue of FPS dealer (July) 17 3.5 Total expenditure of FPS dealer (July) 18 3.6 Profit/Loss of FPS dealer (July) 19 3.7 Biometric authentication for the sample FPS 20 3.8 Biometric Authentication for Malappuram and Thrissur 21 3.9 Extent of usage of epos by beneficiaries 22 3.10 Efficiency of epos machines 23 3.11 Availing printed receipt from e-Pos machine in local language 24 3.12 Average time taken to complete one transaction through e-Pos 25 3.13 Profile of Fair Price Shops 26 4.1 List of Go downs 27 5.1 Price of rice from PDS 28 5.2 Price of Wheat from PDS 29 5.3 Price of sugar from PDS 30 5.4 Quantity of rice entitled for sample households from PDS 31 5.5 Quantity of wheat entitled for sample households from PDS 32 5.6 Quantity of sugar entitled for sample households from PDS 33 5.7 Average cost incurred by beneficiary to avail FPS services 34 5.8 Quota of food grains received by households 35 5.9 Category wise response: quota of food grains received by households 36 5.10 Reasons for not getting full quota of food grains as reported by beneficiary house holds 37 5.11 Experience the problem of under-weighment of commodities 38 5.12 Percentage of beneficiaries launched complaint 3*9 5.13 Percentage of respondent overcharged for food grains 40 5.14 Sample of food grains displayed at the ration shop 41 5.15 Respondents receiving same quality of food grains as the sample displayed at the ration shop 42 5.16 Foreign particles in the food grains received 43 5.17 Complains Launched about inferior quality of food grains 44 5.18 Distance to Fair Price shop 45 5.19 Information regarding availability of food 46 5.20 Number of working days of the ration shop 47 5.21 Number of hours ration shops open for distribution of food grains 48 5.22 Satisfaction level of beneficiaries with the timing of distribution of food grains 49 5.23 Special dispensation for old, infirm, physically challenged 50 5.24 Level of difficulty experienced by beneficiaries (old and disabled) 51 5.25 Usage of toll-free helpline for TPDS 52 5.26 Rice consumption pattern of selected households 53 5.27 Wheat consumption pattern of selected households 54 5.28 Average quantity of rice consumed by households 55 5.29 Average quantity of wheat consumed by households 56 5.30 Preference towards cash subsidy instead of food grains 57 5.31 Reasons for preferring food subsidy over cash subsidy 58 5.32 Additional facilities utilised in FPS 59 5.33 Additional facilities preferred by households in FPS 60 5.34 Opinion about role of PDS 61 5.35 District wise comparison of portability 62 5.36 Portability among the beneficiaries of sample FPS 63 5.37 Trend of portability 64 5.38 Percentage of sample households avail the benefits of portability 65 5.39 Go to nearest / Convenient FPS 66 5.40 Get right quality / Price 67 5.41 PDS dealer behavior CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The enactment of National Food Security Act, (NFSA) 2013 on July 5, 2013 marks a paradigm shift in the approach to food security from welfare to rights based approach. The Act legally entitles up to 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population to receive subsidized food grains under Targeted Public Distribution System. About two thirds of the population therefore is covered under the Act to receive highly subsidized food grains. The National Food Security Act, (NFSA) 2013 is being implemented in all the States/UTs, on an all India basis. The identification of beneficiaries by States/UTs is a continuous process, which involves exclusion of ineligible/fake/duplicate ration cards and also exclusion on account of death, migration etc. and inclusion on account of birth as also that of genuine left-out households. The eligible persons (priority households) are entitled to receive 5 Kgs of food grains per person per month and the subsidized prices must not be greater than Rs. 3/2/1 per Kg for rice/wheat/coarse grains. The existing Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) households, which constitute the poorest of the poor, will continue to receive 35 Kgs of food grains per household per month. NFSA relies on four existing programs to provide food and nutritional security: • Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) • The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) • The Mid Day Meal (MDM) program • The Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) While TPDS provides food grains to approximately 813.4 million Indians under NFSA, the ICDS and MDM programs ensure a free meal to all children aged six months to 14 years at the Anganwadi (childcare centers) and schools, respectively. The IGMSY program provides all pregnant and lactating mothers a maternity benefit of Rs.6000. 1.1 NFSA Kerala Government of Kerala started NFSA implementation in the State with effect from November 1, 2016. Under the NFSA, End to End computerization of the entire chain of the Public Distribution System has been planned with the objectives of reducing leakages, improving, targeting and reducing the economic cost of distribution. It also involves introduction of electronic point of sale (e-pos) at the ARD(Authorized Ration Dealer), supply chain management from the FCI(Food Corporation of India) to the ARD level, biometric authentication for retail and wholesale transactions, providing decision support systems in a GIS based graphic interface to ensure an effective, responsive, transparent, efficient and corruption free PDS. Supplyco has been entrusted with the implementation of the door step delivery of rationed articles under PDS in Kerala. Keeping in line with the NFSA, the Government of Kerala took measures to identify eligible households. In Kerala, the process of renewal of existing ration cards coincided with the statutory provisions of the NFSA. As mandated in the NFSA, “priority” and “non-priority” ration cards replaced the BPL and APL cards respectively. The NFSA has fixed a ceiling cap on the rural and urban population to be included in the priority list as 75 per cent and 50 per cent respectively. For this state wise ranking of the beneficiaries was conducted. Source: Kerala Economic Review 2018-19 1.2 Distribution of Ration Cards In Kerala four types of ration cards with different colour codes for households came into existence as part of the implementation of NFSA. The yellow colour code represents the AAY card, the Priority card comes in pink colour, the non-priority subsidy card is blue in colour and the white colour cards are the non-priority non subsidy ones.