Location No Bar

Context: Government must ensure quick and effective rollout of the One Nation One Ration Card.

Background: Recently, the Supreme Court set a deadline of July 31 for states to implement the One Nation One Ration Card system.

Significance of  One Nation One Ration Card:

• To tackle the migrant crisis: Foodgrains were distributed to a staggering 2.8 crore migrants under the government’s AatmaNirbhar Bharat scheme.

• The concept of the One Nation One Ration Card revolves around the idea that citizens should be able to avail themselves of their entitlements irrespective of where they reside in the country.
• It also strengthens existing social security nets.

Challenges with the implementation of One Nation One Ration Card - 

• Lack of migration data: Shifting to such an architecture will also require continuous and real-time information on migration across the country. But there has been little progress on this front.
• Demands more flexibility: Foodgrain allocations across states will need to be more flexible in nature, taking into account seasonal fluctuations in migration.
• The information technology infrastructure needs to be robust to ensure effective inventory and stock management.
• Entitlement varying across states: Migrants will not be able to access the full benefits available to them in their home states unless those costs are borne by the states. This would require integrated, regularly updated, dynamic systems.
• Lack of ePOS Machines: Not all the 5.4 lakh fair price shops have installed ePoS machines. For instance, as reported in this paper, Delhi is yet to start using ePoS in fair price shops.
• Updation allowed only in the home state: There is also the issue of allowing for the updation of household member details and seeding of ration cards with Aadhaar only in the home state.

Way Forward:

• Incentivise states: Last year, the central government had made states’ additional borrowings conditional on the successful implementation of the One Nation One Ration Card system. 
• More such measures may be needed to ensure a quick and effective rollout of this scheme.