West Bengal CM has launched an ambitious “Duare Ration” Scheme.

Duare Ration Scheme

• The Scheme aims for providing food grains under the public distribution system (PDS) at the doorstep for the entire population of the State.
• It aims to unload the person carrying huge chunk of food grains manually.
• Vehicles will carry ration in a particular street or lane and employees of ration dealers will make the food grains available to the people near their residence.

Key arrangements

• The state govt would provide around 21,000 ration dealers with the financial assistance of ₹1 lakh each to purchase vehicles for delivering ration to people in this manner.
• It also announced financial assistance to ration dealers to hire additional staff to make the scheme a success.

Back2Basics: Public Distribution System

• The PDS is an Indian food Security System established under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution.
• PDS evolved as a system of management of scarcity through the distribution of food grains at affordable prices.
• PDS is operated under the joint responsibility of the Central and State Governments.
• The Central Government, through the Food Corporation of India (FCI), has assumed the responsibility for procurement, storage, transportation, and bulk allocation of food grains to the State Governments.
• The operational responsibilities including allocation within the State, identification of eligible families, issue of Ration Cards and supervision of the functioning of Fair Price Shops (FPSs) etc., rest with the State Governments.
• Under the PDS, presently the commodities namely wheat, rice, sugar and kerosene are being allocated to the States/UTs for distribution. Some States/UTs also distribute additional items of mass consumption through the PDS outlets such as pulses, edible oils, iodized salt, spices, etc.

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