Targeted PDS is a failure: Plan Panel member

NEW DELHI: A day after the Work Bank marked out deficiencies in the country's public distribution system ( PDS) for foodgrain, a senior government official has said that restricting public distribution to below poverty line ( BPL) households has been a failure in India.

"The mess in the public distribution system has been created by the notion that it is only meant for the poor. All problems of the current system are actually the problems of targeting," planning commission member Abhijit Sen said.

Batting for a universal public distribution system, Sen said that the role of the PDS should be facilitating movement of foodgrain from surplus areas to deficit areas and stabilising prices across the country instead of just targeting BPL households.

A World Bank report released on Wednesday said that even as the government spends 1% of its GDP to make the public distribution system work, effect on poverty reduction has been low. The report has said that in 2004-05, only 41% of the grain had reached poor households in 2004-05. The numbers gain significance as the government will use the PDS to implement the proposed Food Security Act.

The report has sided with Sen's argument that adopting a universal access policy for subsidised grains might increase the effectiveness of the PDS to reach poor households. Citing the case of Tamil Nadu, which has universal PDS, the report had said that coverage rate of the poor in the state is very close to the national average.