Mugdha Sinha, Secretary, Food Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs Government of Rajasthan
The State of Rajasthan is doing exemplary work in making available food and nutritional security to 4.46 crore eligible individual beneficiaries as per the provisions of the National Food Security Act, 2013. This is being achieved through automation of the public distribution in keeping with the tripartite objectives of the SDG goals, Government of India directions aligned to NFSA Act and developmental and welfare priorities of the State Government of Rajasthan.
Rajasthan is striking a balance between rights and grievances of the consumers on one end and the responsibilities of the Fair Price Dealers (FPS) towards consumers and their expectations from the system.
The State is also actively implementing the other provisions of National Food Security Act relating to- conduct of social audit, formation of four-tier vigilance committees, establishment of a State Food Commission and office of DGRO for redressing PDS related grievances.
However, it is in the effective use of information technology and data analytics that the State has made remarkable progress, leveraging IT to plug loopholes in deliver systems, to figure out what, where and when to monitor, and using learnings from the same to devise a robust and institutionalised framework of policy guidelines for making the PDS system more accountable, transparent and responsive to both the needs of consumers and demands of time.
With a view to document the vision of the Department of Food & Public Distribution both at the national level and to capture the best practices, initiatives and innovations customised to local requirements across the various States of the country, the Department of Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs, Government of Rajasthan, along with Elets Technomedia, publisher of eminent publications like eGov, Digital Learning, eHealth, Banking & Finance Post, has come up with this National Souvenir on-‘Food-Nutritional Security and automation of Public Distribution System’.
This specially curated national souvenir, which features a healthy mix of analytical articles, interviews based on implementation of schemes by the Centre and the featured States, along with industry voices, academic experts, third party evaluators and other stakeholders, focuses on ground level initiatives and implementation, best practices, success stories of IT, data analytics, e-Governance as also the outlook for the future.
I hope that this souvenir will go a long way in making it more citizen-consumerbeneficiary centric. I am profusely thankful to the Government of Rajasthan, Hon’ble Chief Minister sir and Hon’ble Minister, Food and Consumer Affairs, for giving me the opportunity of a most satisfying tenure.