Raman rajya

If these two yardsticks are taken to be the virtual truth, Chhattisgarh comes out on top.
 

The two terms of Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh are marked by the most successful implementation thus far of the country's public distribution system (PDS), a fact noted by no less than the Supreme Court of India and acknowledged by 11 other state governments.
 

Armed with the slogan 'bread and employment for all', nearly 35 lakh below the poverty line (BPL) people have been supplied with subsidised Rs two per kg rice, free iodised salt and Rs five per kg gram, a model that has caught the fancy of even global donors like the World Bank.
 

So strong and efficient is the PDS in Chhattisgarh that it has become the lifeline for its 35 lakh recipients or roughly 65 per cent of the state's population.
 

In a country still haunted by the prospects of starvation deaths, it has come as a boon. The cost of this subsidy is pegged at Rs 1200 crore annually while the state exchequer 

is poorer by an additional Rs 1000 crore.
 

The beauty of this model, however, lies in the fact that instead of going broke, Chhattisgarh has topped the list of state in GDP terms. 
 

Says the state's food and civil supplies minister Punnulal Mohile, "while some states are faced with the specter of starvation deaths as food grains rot in godowns, we have proved that Chhattisgarh is a grain bowl.''
 

It is doubly an achievement in a state racked by Maoist violence for many years and continues to deal with militants on a daily basis.
 

During his first tenure in 2004, Raman Singh took the challenge of streamlining the state's PDS. In doing so, he bought foodgrains outright from farmers and decided to sell rice practically for free, a bold decision which could easily have careened out of control.
 

There were no less than 400 petitions filed against his decision in the Raipur high court but by September 2005, the court had ruled in the state government's favour.
 

Under the new policy, it was decided that ration shops would be allotted in consultation with representatives of the people which helped in smashing the politician-trader nexus. Shops were allotted to women volunteer groups, cooperatives and gram panchayats.
 

Unsurprisingly, there are now 10,549 fair price shops which directly employ two lakh persons while 50 lakh families benefit from the subsidised rice scheme.

Last year, the Raman Singh government went one better by involving about 20 lakh ration card holders from above poverty line (ABL) families who stood to get 15 kg each of two kinds of rice and 15 kg wheat.
 

The biggest surprise of them all: the success of PDS in Chhattisgarh is centred around the hard and systematic work done by women volunteers and there are as many as 2,324 women volunteer groups which are active in the state. 
 

Says Meena Yadav, secretary of the volunteer group Jagriti Mahila Mandal: "Illiterate and semi-illiterate women in the villages have made this programme a success.''

It also proved the old adage that mistakes in implementing a new system can pave the way for improvements, if the intent it right. In the Raigarh district, the Kunkuri rice scam revealed that the system needed further regulation. 
 

The CM ordered computerisation of PDS and strict action against black marketers, which helped. Strict vigil was maintained on the movement of rice from godowns to ration shops who were told to maintain records with the help of internet; a 34 lakh database of all beneficiaries was prepared in each shop who were obligated to keep an account of all stocks, movement of vehicles and date of delivery. Explains food and civil supplies secretary Vivek Dand: "the decisions were taken to benefit actual beneficiaries and not fakes.''
 

The efforts have borne fruit. Shailaja Chandrakar from Dhanvantri, 15 km from Raipur, who manages a ration shop says: "the earlier system was disorganised. No one knew when a shop would open or close. But today, all irregularities have been brought under control.''
 

The Chhattisgarh success story has found its reverberations in Delhi. The state has won the Gold Award for the success of its online delivery system; an e-agriculture award for online purchase of food grains and a national award for e-governance. If there is a will, there is a way.