The demand for the reintroduction of ration cards has been growing in recent times with the continued rise in the price of essentials. The High Court on Tuesday ordered the government authorities concerned to distribute daily essentials — edible oil, onion, rice, wheat, sugar, and lentils — among the people through ration cards under the open market sale (OMS) policy. But the OMS has proved to be too scanty to provide the support to the poor who often return empty-handed from long queues before OMS trucks.
Although the ration card system had its flaws, its proponents say that the coronavirus pandemic has left millions jobless or with severely curtailed incomes, hurting not only the poor but also the middle-income groups. Even as they were trying to recover from the biggest economic shock in decades, the price hike of essentials that has been fueled further by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month compounded their financial woes. Against this backdrop, a ration system like the one in India could be an effective food support program in alleviating poverty. While Bangladesh dropped the ration card system from the social safety net in the early 1990s, India incorporated it with their Aadhaar Card — a unique identification number that contains everything — from a person’s income, number of family members, and occupation. The Aadhaar cardholder is entitled to get targeted delivery of financial and other subsidies, benefits and services from the Indian government.
Economists said by using Aadhaar data, India is running a ration card program properly. For us to reintroduce it, developing a database in the whole country is very important. Under the system, a person could purchase a certain amount of food items like rice, wheat, lentil, and oil once a week round the year. Low purchasing capacity of millions of impoverished people, despite availability of goods and services, bound them suffering from starvation and living inhumanely, the government and its oligarchs must give people to live.
