By IANS,
New Delhi : Many of Delhi’s slum dwellers want an improved and stronger Public Distribution System (PDS) and not cash transfers, a study has revealed.
The survey, whose findings were released Thursday, was conducted by Ration Vyvastha Sudhar Abhiyan along with Parivartan, Bhalswa Lok Shakti Manch, Jagori, Chintan, the Association for Social Justice and Research and the Centre for Advocacy and Research.
A sample of 593 ration card holders was surveyed.
Deepa Sinha, member of the Right to Food campaign, said: “In the current context of high poverty and malnutrition in our country, a strengthened PDS can play an important role in providing food security, ensuring price stabilisation and contributing to revitalisation of agriculture”.
“Replacing PDS with cash transfers is fraught with problems. It does not ensure food security, does not protect the poor from inflation and is difficult to implement in the absence of a wide network of banks,” she added.
Indian policy makers have been mooting the idea of replacing the PDS system with cash transfers. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, while announcing the budget for 2011-12, also said that the government will move towards direct cash transfers in a phased manner.
The system will be in place by March next year, he added.
A community member from Bhalswa Jahangirpur in Delhi, while strongly objecting to cash in lieu of ration said: “We don’t want cash, we need rations. Presently we have at least something for a month at home that we can eat even with chutney. It is very difficult to purchase all this from the market with increasing prices.”
The survey found that the monthly financial burden on a household that had a ration card was Rs. 1,008.47. Every month they spent Rs.325 on wheat, Rs.308 on rice, Rs.249 on sugar and Rs.126.22 on kerosene.
“More than 50 percent people were not aware of the concept of cash transfers against ration. When the concept was explained the very first reaction was ‘we don’t want cash, we need ration’,” the survey said.
“When asked whether the cash would be used for ration, 52 percent respondents felt that the cash might not be used for ration. Around 84 percent respondents felt that inflation would soon reduce the value of the cash they received and that they would not be able to purchase the grains,” it added.
The survey spanned across 14 areas of east Delhi, south Delhi, northeast Delhi and northwest Delhi. The settlements that were selected for the survey were mostly slums, resettlement colonies and unauthorised colonies.