No basis for claims of large-scale public distribution system leak: Govt

The government on Tuesday said that the assumption of large-scale leakage in the public distribution system (PDS), amounting to almost 28 per cent according to a recent report, lacks a sound base and is riddled with inconsistencies.

 

It said that the data from the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) of 2022-23 includes cereal consumption from multiple sources, such as state-specific schemes and private purchases, which complicates any direct correlation with PDS offtake.

 

It said that, according to HCES 2022-23, monthly per capita cereal consumption is 5.32 kilogram (kg) of rice and 3.93 kg of wheat in rural areas, and 4.28 kg of rice and 3.58 kg of wheat in urban areas.

 

When scaled to the total National Food Security Act beneficiary population of 806 million, the annual household consumption exceeds 85.56 million tones/mt (Annexure-I), which includes consumption apart from PDS sources.

 

“This figure far surpasses the claimed consumption of 51.7 mt mentioned in the author’s report. It may be highlighted that the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations report mentions figures of actual household consumption taken from the HCES report, whereas the tables mention total HCES PDS consumption,” the government said.

 

The government said that offtake, as taken in the report, does not consider the fact that grain offtake figures account for stocks in transit, buffer allocations, operational reserves, and stocks allocated for other social welfare schemes, open market sales, etc.

 

“Hence, offtake figures should not be confused with PDS stocks used for distribution in households,” the government said.

 

A recent report based on HCES 2022-23 shows that almost 28 per cent of the grain supplied by the Food Corporation of India and state governments never reach the intended beneficiaries.

 

“This amounts to a financial loss of about Rs 69,108 crore (equivalent to roughly 20 mt of rice and wheat),” the report said.