News Published in Sakal Times :
Pune : Shekhar Gaikwad, Joint Secretary in the Chief
Minister’s office, who provided an alternative to the inefficient Public
Distribution System (PDS) by implementing the ‘One time home delivery of food
grains scheme’, said that small corrections in the existing system can bring
about a social change.
Gaikwad was speaking at a seminar
on ‘Media, Human Development and Governance : Need for a reality check’
organised by the RTI Forum for Instant Information and the Media
Information and communication Centre of
India, on Sunday.
During his tenure as additional
district collector at Nashik in 2005, Gaikwad studied the PDS and found
loopholes in the system. “The poor were not receiving food grains at Fair Price
Shops (FPS). Also, there was scope for corruption. Out of the total quota of
food grains, only 58 per cent was reaching the poor and there was a leakage of
around 35-65 per cent,” he said.
After consulting the local people’s
representatives and villagers in the tribal hamlets in Peth and Surgana talukas
of Nashik district, he introduced the one time home delivery scheme of food
grains as a pilot project. Under the scheme, food grains are distributed
directly to the villagers after payment is made in advance.
“The project received a huge response
from the villagers, because for them, pre-payment of either three or six months
was more convenient than standing in a queue a FPS every week or month. Since,
it was heavily subsidised, they could easily afford it. As per our calculations,
with this experiment, Rs. 12,500 crore subsidy, storage and transport cost of
food grains can be saved,” he explained.
In 2011, the State Cabinet approved
the scheme in 10,000 villagers of 10 districts of Maharashtra, including Pune,
Jalna and Nashik.
“with the success of this
experiment, the agriculture department is also considering a similar scheme for
the fertiliser sector,” he added.
