Pink Cards, White cards and the BLACK CATS

Some policy measures by the Governments seem to have very quick impacts. Atleast the bad ones seem to have.

The Andhra Pradesh Group of Ministers (GoM) constituted for the purpose of suggesting measures to revamp the public distribution system (PDS) submitted their recommendations to the Government on May 15, 2005. The eligibility criteria for white cards under below poverty line (BPL) population was redefined. Also, eligibility criteria was redefined for pink ration cards.In the urban areas, families with annual income below Rs 24,000 would meet eligibility criteria for BPL cards. In the case of rural areas, the criteria would be annual income below Rs 20,000 or land holding not exceeding 2.5 acres wet or five acres dry. The Government actually went for income level of Rs.60,000 for BPL.

This was done at a time where there were schemes launched especially for BPL population and the Government relaxed the BPL eligibility criteria so that more people could get eligible for the schemes. One of the schemes was the State-wide Health Insurance scheme which then covered more than 60% of the state's population as against the 10% that it should have been because of the redefinition of eligibility. This basically meant extra premiums going into insurers' pockets. Whether the benefits reach the clients is still to be seen.

Now, look at the impact that has been created by this recommendation.

On June 29, 2008, The number of people covered in ration cards issued in Andhra Pradesh far exceeds the actual number of people in the State.

The Bureau of Economics and Statistics puts the population of the State at 8,41,07,104, whereas the number of people covered in all the ration cards issued by the Civil Supplies Departments stands at 8,43,75,650. This means that the cards cover 2.68 lakh more people, indicating that there are bogus cards.

The way our Governments learn:

The Government now has planned to increase the income limit for BPL to Rs 75,000 from Rs 60,000.

About 25 lakh families that held ‘pink cards’, would be made eligible for white cards – enabling them to get rice at Rs 2 in the public distribution system.

This would require the officials to stock 4.8 lakh tonnes of rice every year, incurring an expenditure of Rs 332 crore.

Hmmm....