The Union Finance Minister recently stated that the “One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC)” scheme now covers 68.8 crore beneficiaries under the PDS across 28 states and UTs.
In this context, here is a look at the performance of the ONORC nationally and with special reference to Odisha.
What is ONORC?
The central idea of the ONORC is to make the PDS completely portable.
It aims to allow beneficiaries to lift entitled ration from any part of the country.
The central government will deduct this ration from the quota of the home state and add it in the quota of the selling state.
What is the case with Odisha?
Odisha joined the ONORC system in June 2020.
But, there is no record of a transaction allowing an Odia migrant to lift her stock from another state, or any transaction at all under this scheme.
Aadhaar seeding - On September 15, 2019, the state government declared that only those beneficiaries whose Aadhaar was seeded with their ration card could lift their entitled foodgrain through ABBA
Aadhaar-based Biometric Authentication (ABBA)
Media reports suggest that more than 18 lakh beneficiaries lost their rights to withdraw foodgrain as their ration card was not seeded with Aadhaar.
It is not clear how many could get back into the system afterwards.
Beneficiaries have been deleted even if they had Aadhaar cards but these weren’t seeded with their ration cards.
Mandatory ABBA for withdrawing entitled ration had a detrimental impact on particular groups.
These include the elderly, the disabled, and the physically incapacitated people.
They find it difficult to physically visit PDS shops or whose fingerprints are not accurately read by authentication machines.
What is the picture at the national level?
Nationally, monthly transactions show close to 24,500 beneficiaries on nearly 3,500 cards who lifted their entitled ration from states other than their home state.
From June till November 15 of 2020, merely around 95,800 beneficiaries through around 12,850 ration cards have benefited.
Notably, this is a small fraction of the 22 crore PDS beneficiaries in India.
It is clear that despite tall claims, very few beneficiaries have actually benefited from the scheme.
Intrastate portability of ration transactions is much higher than interstate portability.
In October 2020, 1.45 core transactions took place through intrastate portability.
A majority of this was in Andhra Pradesh (42.5 lakh), Rajasthan (28.1 lakh), Bihar (22.6 lakh), U.P. (11.5 lakh) and Telangana (11 lakh).
Implementing ONORC within a state does not require any additional arrangements as it follows already operational procedures of entitlement and price.
What are the procedural shortfalls?
Despite the Centre’s claims about the implementation of the ONORC over the past year, there is no clarity on the operating procedures and beneficiary entitlements.
For instance, each state has a different price and basket of entitlements.
Various operating factors like fixing of prices, entitlements and payments, and sharing of migrant data between states remain unaddressed.
Would the rice-eating Odia get rice or wheat in a wheat-providing state like Rajasthan?
Would beneficiaries of Tamil Nadu, who get ration free of cost, have to pay for receiving the ration in another state?
What is the way forward?
It is essential that a detailed cost-benefit analysis of the ONORC is undertaken.
This is to address the concern around the exclusion of beneficiaries without any evidence, to indicate the trade-offs of portability.
The administrative burdens for beneficiaries should be addressed to make the system more accessible to them.
