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An Improved PDS in a 'Reviving' State
The public distribution system is widely criticised for being ridden with chronic corruption and failing to deliver benefits in a systematic manner. Using a sample of 793 households in the district of Koraput in Odisha, this article reviews the performance of the PDS in the district and highlights three important points: first, distribution of foodgrains, specifically rice, through the PDS has undergone vast improvements in the past five years; second, while the PDS is fairly inclusive in the district, households excluded are massively deprived, supporting the need for an expansion of coverage; and third, access to grains is fundamentally important in a region where the primary source of livelihood is a combination of subsistence agriculture and casual labour, and where child under-nutrition is rampant.
I thank Sabina Alkire, Jean Drèze, Reetika Khera and Suman Seth for invaluable comments and suggestions on initial drafts. I am deeply grateful to Rajkishor Mishra for insights and information on the PDS in Odisha. I also gratefully acknowledge the efforts of the team of field investigators and funding from Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and Oxford Department of International Development for making extensive fieldwork possible.
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