Food distribution system collapses - and so do lives

Kozhikode (Kerala), India : Abdul Rehman is no more. A small cog in the massive public distribution system (PDS), he hanged himself last year unable to deal with a collapsing business and rising debts.

But it was not always so.

Till only three years ago, Rehman, a retail ration dealer for more than 20 years in Ambayathode village in Kerala's Kozhikode district, could make a decent living, reports Grassroots Features Network.

With 1,700 ration cardholders on his rolls, he enjoyed a certain status in the community. During the festival season, villagers formed long lines in front of his shop.

But the scene soon changed. His business ran into trouble. Offtake from the outlet dwindled, the stocks turned rotten and he had to borrow money at high interest rates from local moneylenders.



One day a vigilance squad raided his shop and fined him Rs.10,000 for certain accounting irregularities.

That was the proverbial last straw on the camel's back.

"My father took the easy way. Last year, he hanged himself," says his son P.K. Kader.

Abdul Rahman was not unique. Nor did he make any headlines with his suicide - because he was just one of 50 retail ration dealers who have ended their lives in the last three years.

Their desperation can be traced to the implementation of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) by the central government in 1999 as part of its economic reforms, and the consequent collapse of the efficient statutory distribution system in food-deficit Kerala.




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The combined factors have driven around 50,000 families depending on the ration business for their livelihood into a miserable existence.

Many of the 15,000 odd ration dealers have quit in search of other profitable businesses.

"Almost all of us are in the grip of debt. The central government turns a deaf ear to our woes and the state government pleads helplessness. What shall we do now?" asks T. Mohammedali, a ration dealer for the last 25 years and the general secretary of Kozhikode district committee of the All Kerala Retail Ration Dealers Association (AKRRDA).

In Kozhikode district alone, 10 dealers have committed suicide.

Kerala, which boasted the most successful PDS in the country providing access to food grains for almost the entire population, is the worst hit by the shift in the food policy of the central government.



Since statutory PDS started in the state in the mid-1960s, it had near-universal coverage. It played an important role in providing food security and ensuring availability of essential commodities at fair prices in the state.

As of April 2003, there were 6.3 million cardholders in the state. Irrespective of the income status, more than 90 percent of the population depended on PDS for their food security.

According to the government, almost all villages have a ration shop within a two-kilometre radius.

While there was an urban bias in PDS in most states, there was no such thing in Kerala. Nearly two-thirds of the total rice requirement of the poor was met from PDS. Also, the poor could purchase their ration in instalments.

"What should have been a model for other states in the matter of food security, given the acute inequalities in accessing food in India, has now been left to fight for its very survival," says K.P. Kannan, director of the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram.

Under TPDS, the central government supplies subsidised rice only to 25 percent of Kerala's population considered living below poverty line (BPL).

But the Kerala government continued with its universal coverage of PDS and introduced a dual pricing system.

Under this, 42 percent of cardholders have been identified as BPL and are supplied subsidised rice, thus causing an additional burden of Rs.1.13 billion a year on the state exchequer.

The population was divided into BPL and above poverty line (APL) under the TPDS and prices of food grains and other essential commodities were increased unilaterally by the centre. This forced a substantial section of APL people to drop out of PDS.

"The APL category now includes even agricultural labourers and farmers. Since the prices for food grains for APL are almost the same as those in the market, they naturally go to the open market," says M.V. Basheer, general secretary of AKRRDA.

Rural ration shops with 400-600 cards attached to them have an average of 150 BPL cardholders. In urban areas, BPL cardholders are about 20-50.




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Under the BPL scheme, only rice is subsidised at present and that, too, often of very poor quality.

Though in August 53,851 million tonnes of rice was allotted in the BPL category, only 43,191 million tonnes was sold through the PDS.

The quality of the BPL rice and the Antyodaya rice distributed to the poorest of the poor is so bad that it is often not suitable for human consumption.

The distribution of wheat and rice through the PDS system in the state shows a decline since 1999.

It came down sharply to 461,000 tonnes of rice 79,000 tonnes of wheat during 2001 compared to 1.6 million tonnes and 458,000 tonnes respectively during 1998.

During 2002, it further went down to 328,000 tonnes of rice and 125,000 tonnes of wheat.