Starved for some competence at Food & Civil Supplies Department

GANGTOK: The Performance Review of the management of the Public Distribution System by the Food & Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department records that the Department has done a “commendable job” in catering to the 70,851 below poverty line beneficiaries and 4,30,547 APL beneficiaries in Sikkim. The performance review audit included in the Report of Comptroller and Auditor General of India [for Sikkim for the year ended 31 March 2010], however, then proceeds to tear into the incompetence which marks the Department and holds back the schemes from delivering on their full potential. Since Sikkim is a food-deficit State, it depends heavily on the universally accepted as inefficient FCI and maintains no buffer stock, making the absence of competence in the Food & Civil Supplies Department even more potentially damaging.
The public distribution system has been created to ensure food security and since subsidised foodgrains are also released through it, the need for this list to be authentic is important. The Department admitted way back in 2008 that the BPL list had deficiencies, but has done nothing to correct it. Some 70,851 families were receiving PDS benefits under different BPL schemes in Sikkim and the Department continues to hold on to it despite another agency of the Government having projected the number of BPL families at 21,618 [way back in 2006].

Inconsistencies abound in this regard with the State Government projecting the number of BPL families at 43,428 while applying for subsidised foodgrains. The supplies received, the government incorporated even more subsidies and in the period from 2005 to 2010, incurred, what the CAG Report calls “avoidable payment” of subsidy to the tune of Rs. 3.47 crores [if it had worked with the figure of 21,618 BPL families instead of 43,428].
One would not mind having too many people enjoying benefits, but what is worrying in Sikkim is that the departmental incompetence manifests as offensive denial on ground. The Audit reveals that while fixing the price structure for BPL rice, average charges from different food godowns to fair price shops [FPS] was estimated at Rs. 20 and retail sale commission, handling, shortage, including toll tax was fixed at Rs. 15. However, scrutiny of 15 FPS [there are 185 FPS in Sikkim] revealed that the dealers were charging transportation charge ranging from Rs. 10 to Rs. 40 per family per month even from beneficiaries of the Mukhya Mantri Antyodaya Annadaan Yojana [MMAAA] who were to have received the rice for free!
What is the Department doing? Its officers told the Audit that the Department the audit observation was “under consideration”....
Sikkim is an essentially rice-eating State, and following studies conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research on minimum human requirement of cereals, raised the monthly allocation of APL rice to 35 kg per family in April 2002. While in Arunachal Pradesh, APL rice was distributed to the scale of 35 kg per ration card, in Sikkim, it was an alarmingly low 2 kg per card per month.
Audit analysis has revealed that this was owing to the Department’s failure to weed out the ineligible BPL beneficiaries and diversion of APL rice to the Mukhya Mantri Khadya Suraksha Abhiyan. The Department explained away the low distribution to the emphasis being on providing food security to the poor and rural population since the APL category could afford to buy their rice from the open market. This reply, the Audit rightly records, is untenable. Even more so when one bears in mind that in 2009-10, the Department procured 20,153 excess quintals of APL rice, against which misuse of at least 8,610 quintals “could not be ruled out by the Audit”.
Not just rice, even the distribution of iodised salt through the PDS has been found to be irregular by the Audit. The State Government, in a recorded move to “increase nutritive value, especially for adolescent girls and pregnant women”, introduced iodised salt as one of the essential commodities under the Public Distribution System and the responsibility of lifting, transporting and distribution was assigned to M/s Hanuman Nolkha.
This agency lifted 7,200 MT per annum from 2005 to 2010 and sold it in urban areas without routing the consignment through food godowns or fair price shops! Despite the policy decision of the Government, the Department did not feel it necessary to inform the ration card holders [of salt now available for them at the FPS] or keep vigil on the said agency. The Audit records that instead of iodised salt reaching the remotest FPS, its supply remained restricted to urban areas. Although the Department claims that consumption of this iodised salt was more in the rural areas, monthly statements submitted by the agent reveal that distribution was restricted to urban centres.
The manner in which the Department has handled the supply of sugar at fair price shops is even worse. To begin with, against an allotment of 15,116 MT of levy sugar between 2005-10, the Department lifted only 10,525 MT. Obviously, release to FPS was also lower, but what is even more revealing of the inequity by which the department conducts itself, audit examination revealed that a “a large quantity of levy sugar was allocated to individuals and others for ceremonies and festivals”.
“Least priority was accorded to the targeted beneficiaries under PDS thereby violating the norms of distribution of levy sugar,” the report underlines.
Even the levy sugar released to FPS was consumed at higher than prescribed cost by the people. The Department fixed the retail price of levy sugar at Rs. 19.50 per kg after providing Rs. 4.23 per kg as transportation charges. The Department however paid only Rs. 3.07 per kg towards transportation charge and inexcusably, did not pass on the benefit of reduced transportation actual to the people, who, between 2005-10, ended up paying a combined Rs. 65.23 lakh extra for the 524.22 MT they consumed.
Under the Essential Commodity Act of 1955, the sale of essential commodities under PDS above the Retail Index Price fixed by the Government of India tantamounts to a punishable offence. And yet, between 2005-10, consumers in Sikkim paid a collective Rs. 2.05 crore more than the RIP and the State exchequer bore an additional subsidy burden of Rs. 28.70 lakhs. All this, because the Department continues to drag its feet on the adoption of Retail Index Price despite the oversight having been pointed out in 2005 itself by the CAG.
With the Department itself so confused on its responsibilities, it is hardly surprising that it does not monitor the Fair Price Shops too well. Audit scrutiny revealed that the FPSs were not aware of the exact number of APL ration cards under their control, did not display samples of foodgrains being supplied by it, did not have rate boards and did not display any information about shop timings, availability of stock or number of beneficiaries etc. All these are required under the PDS Control Act of 2001.
None of the FPSs filed returns of any kind with the district authorities, making the information forwarded by the district authorities to the State Government and by the State Government to the Centre, doubtful. Needless to add, inspections and vigilance were non-existent.
Then there is the failed attempt at preparation of digital ration cards, the work for which was awarded in September 2006 to Shreya Traders. By August 2009, the Department had stopped the process when this agent was found issuing unauthorised ration cards on the side. The Audit found that this criminal breach and a ration card issuing process littered with typographical errors and mismatching photographs resulted from “lackadaisical approach of the Department” which ended up depriving even the bona fide citizens from acquiring a ration card. Now, the Department is planning to issue ration cards with biometric technology linked to the Unique Identification Project.
The Audit records that monitoring was lax leading to non-documentation by FPSs, absence of mandatory checks by vigilance committee, departmental officers and special area officers; “thus, the functioning of Targeted Public Distribution System in Sikkim was left much to be desired”. It has recommended that the Department fix responsibility of all the field officers with respect to monitoring, quality checking and proper accounting of foodgrain and also undertake a “critical review” of the functioning of fair price shops in a time-bound programme. Now to see how the recommendations, and there are many more, are incorporated.