Highlights of the Achievements of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
COP 21 AT PARIS: Working Towards Climate Justice:-
- It released “PARAMPARA”, a book on India’s culture and climate-friendly sustainable practices.
- Reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 percent by 2030 from 2005 level.
- To achieve about 40 percent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel based energy resources by 2030 with the help of transfer of technology and low-cost international finance including from Green Climate Fund (GCF)
- To create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.
INITIATIVES TO REDUCE POLLUTION-
- National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) comprise 12 pollutants, out of which, three pollutants namely PM10, SO2 and NO2 are monitored
- Implementation of Bharat Stage IV norms in the 63 selected cities and universalization of BS-IV by 2017
- CPCB has worked out a transparent criteria to classify industries as ‘Red’ ‘Orange’ ‘Green’ and ‘White’ Category to link with ease of doing business and granting of consent including its siting. The criteria evolved are based on pollution potential and resource consumption rather than capital cost.
- Developed Action Plan for Ganga mainstream States to achieve Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) and water conservation for tanneries, distilleries, textiles, sugar and pulp and paper and achieving improved effluent standards for irrigation in respect of pulp and paper and sugar industries.
- An online system for submission and monitoring of Environmental and Forest approvals under the provisions of Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980
INITIATIVES TO ENHANCE GREEN COVER:–
- Nagar Vana Udyan Yojana- aims to create at least one city forest in each city with a minimum area of 25 ha. The scheme aims at creation of a City Forest in forest areas within their jurisdiction up to a maximum of 100 ha and minimum area of 20 ha. The objective of the Yojana is to create 200 City Forests in the country
- School Nursery Yojana-aims to build a lasting bond of students with nature.
- Green India Mission (GIM)-aims at increasing the forest/ tree cover by 5 million hectare as well as, increasing the quality of the existing forest cover in another 5 million hectare
- Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA)–To ensure expeditious utilisation in transparent and efficient manner, and safety and security of the accumulated amounts and fresh accruals, the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill 2015 has been introduced in the Parliament.
India and INDC can be read from here- Click here
Highlights of Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare during 2015
Anubhav–
‘Anubhav’ is a platform for retiring government employees to share their experience of working the Government and for showcasing commendable work done during service. It is envisaged that this would provide satisfaction to the retiring employees and also act as motivator for serving employees. Over time this will build up a wealth of useful suggestions. This would also provide an excellent opportunity to harness the resource of retiring employees for voluntary contribution to nation building post retirement.
Bhavishya–
Bhavishya is an online tracking system for pension sanction and payment. By keeping track of the progress of each pension case, it introduces transparency and accountability into the system thereby plugging delays. This benefits the retiring employees, pensioners and the administration equally.
Pensioners’ Portal–
Pensioners’ Portal is the one stop solution for all information needs of the pensioners. The Portal also provides for registration of pensioners’ grievances through the Centralized Pension Grievance Registration and Monitoring System (CPENGRAMS)
Eight core Industries for Index of Industrial Production
The Eight Core Industries comprise nearly 38% of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP)
- Coal
- Crude Oil
- Natural Gas
- Refinery Products
- Fertilizers
- Steel
- Cement
- Electricity
These industries have substantial impact as they are intricately linked by forward and backward linkage with the economy , and hence their good performance is quite vital for economic health.
Apex court upholds curbs on serving liquor in Kerala- Exclusive Analysis
Background :-The Kerala Govt. has recently banned liquor in the state with few exemptions (five-star hotels). This was challenged in the court and the court this time sides with the Govt.Recently Bihar also banned liquor , so this verdict gives other states the necessary precedence to enact such laws.
This is an interesting case and to understand it fully we need to browse through various point of views.
Constitutional/Legal Aspect:-
Alcohol is both in State list and Union list (State list where the only the state govt can make laws on the subject and union list is where the Union has exclusive right to make laws)
Alcohol as part of Union List the Central govt can make laws pertaining to use of alcohol when it is used as part of medicinal,toilet preparation etc.
Alcohol as part of state list – the state govt has all the right to make laws as long as alcohol is considered as an intoxicating drink .
In this case, the state of Kerala or Bihar has exclusive right to make laws as long as liquor is considered for consumption.
Now as per constitution and Article 47 :-
“Duty of the State to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living and to improve public health The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties and, in particular, the State shall endeavor to bring about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health”
It is clear from the article that alcohol can be banned and it won’t be violation of any freedom as per the constitution.
Social and Political Aspect:-
Impacts on society and politics:-
- Many tribes across India , enjoy their home-made alcohol for different occasions and Alcohol forms part of their culture and celebration.
- However , in recent times alcoholism has been in the rise and many tribal people fall victim to it. Many loose lives after drinking toxic alcohol- we have came across this mass death emanating from consumption of alcohol form time to time.
- The poor are the most vulnerable section and victims of alcoholism.
- Alcohol , has given rise to many social evils too – prominent being momentary passion for crime and domestic violence.
- Alcohol also used as a political tool in recent times and votes are manipulated through distribution of alcohol.This has a bad impact on democracy and clean politics.
- Underage drinking is also on the rise .
Economic Aspects:-
- Next door to Kerala , Tamilnadu -there is an interesting case, where the state govt in fact sells alcohol and has monopoly. This itself is odd, the sheer contrast in functioning 2 neighboring states is startling.
- While Tamilnadu govt keeps it as an economic activity, Kerala govt is trying to ban it as a social evil.
- Of course, without doubt, Alcohol is a revenue earner.
Analysis:-
- People will drink irrespective of the ban or not and that’s a truth which we can’t ignore.There will be a huge trade of smuggling and black marketing of alcohol across state borders.Of course the neighboring states like Tamilnadu will benefit from it and so does the smugglers and black marketers.
- We should not make a law/regulation which we can not enforce properly ( Delhi’s odd-even formula for eg) .Hence making this law is wrong in that aspect.
- Though state govt behaves as a”Parent” in this case and though it has all the right to do so , yet it has to give certain degree of liberty to its citizenry.
- The Apex court only looks at the merit of the law and looks at constitution to justify it , however it missed the very essence of this law- can we enforce it ?
- Moreover, exempting the five-star hotels from ban is a rational choice and this should have been the templates where the state govt should have raised the alcohol tax so high that it becomes unaffordable for many.
- The economic route of heavy taxation could have been a good measure than resorting to law .
- In fact , Bihar and Kerala should have asked the center to make the law on their behalf and if we could have achieved a uniform heavy tax across all states then , this law would have been better enforceable and would have served the purpose.
- Moreover, an addict , in absence of one drug resorts to another, hence a reality ground assessment on this should have been done and possible alternative also should have been highly taxed.
- The developed countries operate this way where tobacco is highly priced and thus becomes unaffordable for many , and even if one can afford , one can afford only little.To find the balance of correct economic taxation requires that people should have what they want , yet they should not be able to have it in the high quantity they want as it becomes unaffordable.That way , people will have their alcohol , but will have a little of it , so a perfect check on alcoholism and resorting to any other alternative..
- Also , this law in the hands of enforcers becomes a perfect tool for corruption and we already know where India stand in corruption.It is not only bad people do corruption , it is also the bad laws that give space to corruption.
- To sum up , this is a perfect case of good intention supported by ineffective laws.
Note :- This is an exclusive upsctree analysis.We are open to debate on this if you have any valid arguments, kindly do write in the comment section.We strongly believe in debate, discussions and deliberation.
Safe guarding the decision makers:-
- According to the new rules notified by the DoPT, IAS officers working with the Centre can now be suspended only on the recommendation of the Central Review Committee and with the approval of the minister in charge of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
- States will now have to inform the Centre within 48 hours of suspending any all-India services officer (IAS, PS and IFS) working for them. Copy of the suspension order and reasons for the suspension have to be communicated. Earlier, there was no time limit. Also, now the state cannot keep an officer suspended beyond 30 days if the Centre does not confirm the suspension or if disciplinary proceedings are not initiated. The earlier period was 45 days
- The Central Review Committee will now have the secretary of the DoPT as chairperson and its members will be the DoPT’s establishment officer and the secretary of the ministry where the IAS officer is posted. Previously, the committee was headed by the secretary of the ministry concerned and it was optional to co-opt a DoPT officer.
- The new rules also stipulate that any appeals or memorials against disciplinary action taken by the state government or a central ministry against an all-India service officer must be forwarded to the Centre with the ministry or state’s comments within 30 days of receipt “or the Central government will take a decision on the advance copy of the appeal received by them.“
- These rules are aimed at checking any arbitrary suspension by the governments. These All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Amendment Rules, 2015, replace the rules of 1969.
Analysis :- The buzz word of last year ” policy paralysis” has emanated from the very fact that honest civil servants who have taken a decision with bona-fide intention has been hounded. Due to this many bureaucrats stopped or shied away from decision-making , there by leading to policy paralysis.This is indeed a welcome step to safe guard the decision makers.
Few Facts:-
- The Department of Commerce’s DAVA (Drug Authentication and Verification Application) project has won the 2015 eASIA Award under Trade Facilitation category as announced by Asia Pacific Council for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (AFACT) in Tehran, Iran.
- India moves 13 position ahead from 65th to 52nd rank in Tourism & Travel competitive index as per world Economic Forum Report
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- The price of items distributed through FPS across states.
Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.
Heat wave is a condition of air temperature which becomes fatal to human body when exposed. Often times, it is defined based on the temperature thresholds over a region in terms of actual temperature or its departure from normal.
Heat wave is considered if maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 400C or more for Plains and at least 300C or more for Hilly regions.
a) Based on Departure from Normal
Heat Wave: Departure from normal is 4.50C to 6.40C
Severe Heat Wave: Departure from normal is >6.40C
b) Based on Actual Maximum Temperature
Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥ 450C
Severe Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥470C
If above criteria met at least in 2 stations in a Meteorological sub-division for at least two consecutive days and it declared on the second day
It is occurring mainly during March to June and in some rare cases even in July. The peak month of the heat wave over India is May.
Heat wave generally occurs over plains of northwest India, Central, East & north Peninsular India during March to June.
It covers Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, parts of Maharashtra & Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana.
Sometimes it occurs over Tamilnadu & Kerala also.
Heat waves adversely affect human and animal lives.
However, maximum temperatures more than 45°C observed mainly over Rajasthan and Vidarbha region in month of May.
a. Transportation / Prevalence of hot dry air over a region (There should be a region of warm dry air and appropriate flow pattern for transporting hot air over the region).
b. Absence of moisture in the upper atmosphere (As the presence of moisture restricts the temperature rise).
c. The sky should be practically cloudless (To allow maximum insulation over the region).
d. Large amplitude anti-cyclonic flow over the area.
Heat waves generally develop over Northwest India and spread gradually eastwards & southwards but not westwards (since the prevailing winds during the season are westerly to northwesterly).
The health impacts of Heat Waves typically involve dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke. The signs and symptoms are as follows:
1. Heat Cramps: Ederna (swelling) and Syncope (Fainting) generally accompanied by fever below 39*C i.e.102*F.
2. Heat Exhaustion: Fatigue, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps and sweating.
3. Heat Stoke: Body temperatures of 40*C i.e. 104*F or more along with delirium, seizures or coma. This is a potential fatal condition.
Norman Borlaug and MS Swaminathan in a wheat field in north India in March 1964
Political independence does not have much meaning without economic independence.
One of the important indicators of economic independence is self-sufficiency in food grain production.
The overall food grain scenario in India has undergone a drastic transformation in the last 75 years.
India was a food-deficit country on the eve of Independence. It had to import foodgrains to feed its people.
The situation became more acute during the 1960s. The imported food had to be sent to households within the shortest possible time.
The situation was referred to as ‘ship to mouth’.
Presently, Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns are overflowing with food grain stocks and the Union government is unable to ensure remunerative price to the farmers for their produce.
This transformation, however, was not smooth.
In the 1960s, it was disgraceful, but unavoidable for the Prime Minister of India to go to foreign countries with a begging bowl.
To avoid such situations, the government motivated agricultural scientists to make India self-sufficient in food grain production.
As a result, high-yield varieties (HYV) were developed. The combination of seeds, water and fertiliser gave a boost to food grain production in the country which is generally referred to as the Green Revolution.
The impact of the Green Revolution, however, was confined to a few areas like Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh in the north and (unified) Andhra Pradesh in the south.
Most of the remaining areas were deficit in food grain production.
Therefore the Union government had to procure food grain from surplus states to distribute it among deficit ones.
At the time, farmers in the surplus states viewed procurement as a tax as they were prevented from selling their surplus foodgrains at high prices in the deficit states.
As production of food grains increased, there was decentralisation of procurement. State governments were permitted to procure grain to meet their requirement.
The distribution of food grains was left to the concerned state governments.
Kerala, for instance, was totally a deficit state and had to adopt a distribution policy which was almost universal in nature.
Some states adopted a vigorous public distribution system (PDS) policy.
It is not out of place to narrate an interesting incident regarding food grain distribution in Andhra Pradesh. The Government of Andhra Pradesh in the early 1980s implemented a highly subsidised rice scheme under which poor households were given five kilograms of rice per person per month, subject to a ceiling of 25 kilograms at Rs 2 per kg. The state government required two million tonnes of rice to implement the scheme. But it received only on one million tonne from the Union government.
The state government had to purchase another million tonne of rice from rice millers in the state at a negotiated price, which was higher than the procurement price offered by the Centre, but lower than the open market price.
A large number of studies have revealed that many poor households have been excluded from the PDS network, while many undeserving households have managed to get benefits from it.
Various policy measures have been implemented to streamline PDS. A revamped PDS was introduced in 1992 to make food grain easily accessible to people in tribal and hilly areas, by providing relatively higher subsidies.
Targeted PDS was launched in 1997 to focus on households below the poverty line (BPL).
Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) was introduced to cover the poorest of the poor.
Annapoorna Scheme was introduced in 2001 to distribute 10 kg of food grains free of cost to destitutes above the age of 65 years.
In 2013, the National Food Security Act (NFSA) was passed by Parliament to expand and legalise the entitlement.
Conventionally, a card holder has to go to a particular fair price shop (FPS) and that particular shop has to be open when s/he visits it. Stock must be available in the shop. The card holder should also have sufficient time to stand in the queue to purchase his quota. The card holder has to put with rough treatment at the hands of a FPS dealer.
These problems do not exist once ration cards become smart cards. A card holder can go to any shop which is open and has available stocks. In short, the scheme has become card holder-friendly and curbed the monopoly power of the FPS dealer. Some states other than Chhattisgarh are also trying to introduce such a scheme on an experimental basis.
More recently, the Government of India has introduced a scheme called ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ which enables migrant labourers to purchase rations from the place where they reside. In August 2021, it was operational in 34 states and Union territories.
The intentions of the scheme are good but there are some hurdles in its implementation which need to be addressed. These problems arise on account of variation in:
It is not clear whether a migrant labourer gets items provided in his/her native state or those in the state s/he has migrated to and what prices will s/he be able to purchase them.
The Centre must learn lessons from the experiences of different countries in order to make PDS sustainable in the long-run.
For instance, Sri Lanka recently shifted to organic manure from chemical fertiliser without required planning. Consequently, it had to face an acute food shortage due to a shortage of organic manure.
Some analysts have cautioned against excessive dependence on chemical fertiliser.
Phosphorus is an important input in the production of chemical fertiliser and about 70-80 per cent of known resources of phosphorus are available only in Morocco.
There is possibility that Morocco may manipulate the price of phosphorus.
Providing excessive subsidies and unemployment relief may make people dependent, as in the case of Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
It is better to teach a person how to catch a fish rather than give free fish to him / her.
Hence, the government should give the right amount of subsidy to deserving people.
The government has to increase livestock as in the case of Uruguay to make the food basket broad-based and nutritious. It has to see to it that the organic content in the soil is adequate, in order to make cultivation environmentally-friendly and sustainable in the long-run.
In short, India has transformed from a food-deficit state to a food-surplus one 75 years after independence. However, the government must adopt environmental-friendly measures to sustain this achievement.