According to a World Bank study as high as 84.4 per cent people in Bihar said bureaucratic delays were the major reason for low ration card access. The state is followed by Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal where between 65 per cent and 67 per cent people feel they faced problems due to bureaucracy. It shows a huge 16.5 per cent gap between Bihar and second placed state, Jharkhand. All these states are Maoists-affected.

In contrast, the Southern States performed better on this front. Here, especially in Tamil Nadu, a higher number of people quoted other reasons for not having ration cards.

The study says that the problem is more pronounced in rural India, with 46.7 per cent people saying that they face problems on this count.

The poorest sections and Scheduled Tribes have been the worst hit, with 53.6 per cent and 52.7 per cent, respectively, saying they could not access ration cards because of red-tapism.

The World Bank report also suggested that India should move to a smart card system in the Public Distribution System (PDS) to make it more effective.

The Bank says that the smart card system is not new to India, and cites the examples of Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, the ICICI Bank, which has instituted a smart card system for health insurance and the small scale private initiative of Swayam Krishi Sangam at Medak district in Andhra Pradesh. It is basically an electronic passbook to record all transactions.

However, some food rights workers are skeptical about it.

Comment

comments...

I was thinking of this problem to people, particularly rural population in large number during of several visits to rural Bihar.

The World Bank survey has correctly come out with figures of official bottleneck in issuing ration cards in the state.This has become a big problem for citizen of the state, specially people below poverty line as they are entitled to cheap food grains not only from state government but from the centre, which is going to implement re one per kg grains on subsidized rates. Correctly officials are responsible for the delay because they want hefty amount to issue a ration cards as per the general survey in rural areas, Not only that big problem is government rule to apply before only SDOs for ration cards , people living in rural areas how will go far places like sub-divisional headquarters to apply for the same.!In my opinion blame should straight go to Nitish Kumar, who only believes in announcements! Over eight or nine months back state food and civil supplies department had issued an advertisement in newspapers that everybody will get ration cards in one month time- but it failed miserably and people of BPL and APL ranks are yet to get ration cards! In this state everything has a premium- those pay get not pay do not get! I have definite information that in state capital alone, lakhs of application on prescribed forms are pending for disposal and these are yet to be processed before Patna Sadar SDO in the wake of ads in newspapers for ration cards.Result is that it is far below the targets of issuing ration cards in comparison to other states, particularly Jharkhand and West Bengal as per World Bank survey. This what good rule of Nitish Kumar!

kksingh, journalist, retired from The Times of India as chief reporter and based at Patna.