Prerequisite 21 of 21

PDS re-organisation

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21Built

The 2015 proposal

Re-organise the Public Distribution System — decentralised, grains to local consumption patterns, local redistribution, protein (pulses/eggs) included, on the card.

Where it stands in 2026

Realised through the National Food Security Act (2013), end-to-end PDS computerisation, ePoS authentication at fair-price shops and One Nation One Ration Card — portability that lets entitlement follow the migrant worker rather than stay pinned to a home village. The protein-and-millets push and rice fortification echo the deck’s own move from calorie security to nutrition. Leakage that once drained the system has fallen sharply where biometric ePoS is live; the remaining argument is about what the ration contains, not whether it arrives.

The open gap

Protein diversification (pulses, millets, eggs) is still partial.

How to sustain & deepen it

Diversify the PDS basket from cereals toward nutrition — pulses, millets, eggs and fortified staples — so the system delivers protein and micronutrients, not just calories. Use One Nation One Ration Card data to target nutrition support where deficiency is measured, turning a distribution network into a nutrition instrument. Guard against the real risk of digital authentication — that a failed fingerprint denies a genuine beneficiary their grain — with reliable offline fallbacks, so inclusion errors don’t replace leakage. The pipe is built and largely sealed; the task now is to make what flows through it nourish.

See it working: Policy dashboard →

Where it sits in the chain

See the full map →

Depends on

Enables

Nothing yet — this is a capstone of the chain.

Sources