New Delhi: Dalberg, a leading social impact advisory group today released an extensive study on “Fulfilling the promise of One Nation One Ration Card”. The study was designed to underline the value of the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) reform launched in 2019. ONORC today forms a key part of India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) and was designed primarily to benefit migrants. The study was supported by Omidyar Network India, an investment firm focused on social impact.
The report has found that the ONORC scheme which was primarily created to provide food safety to migrant families has had a positive impact even on non-migrants. It has given households benefiting from PDS more choice and flexibility to choose which Fair Price Shop (FPS) they can get their rations from. While most households are aware of portability and their right to rations from any FPS, awareness of inter-state portability, (most applicable to the migrant workforce), is at 58%. The study also showed that while most ONORC transactions are successful, technology failures at FPS and fear of stockouts are the top reasons for denial of service. It found that despite government directives stating that rations cannot be denied due to failures occurring on account of technology, most PDS dealers were either unaware or unwilling to use any exception handling mechanism to issue rations in such situations. The study also reports that marginalized women found it most difficult to access their rations.
The study focused on five states, i.e., Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh which were among some of the early adopters of the scheme and account for more than 40% of PDS transactions conducted under portability. Among the first comprehensive studies of its kind, it highlights the impact and experience of ONORC on beneficiaries as well as PDS dealers, and can provide inputs to policymakers to improve the design and implementation of the scheme:
The study shows that ONORC has given greater choice to those availing rations. It is also a scheme that is being used by non-migrant households, apart from families moving across India:
- 48% of all beneficiaries were fully aware of portability and 31% were partially aware, while at least 20% of households who wanted portability were unaware
- 88% of households using portability succeeded in collecting their rations, while 4% could not. 12% reported experiencing a transaction failure. Technology related failures and PDS dealers’ fear of stockouts were among the most common reasons for failure.
- 20% of migrant households with ration cards used portability recently, while 12% of all households with a ration card surveyed tried portability usage recently; 14% of households desired to use it in the future.
- 2% of beneficiaries were yet to seed their ration card with Aadhaar.
- Widowed, divorced, or separated women faced steeper barriers in getting or updating their ration cards.
The report also underlined the need for better education of PDS dealers about ONORC’s entitlements as well as better support to them in key areas
- 97% of PDS dealers knew or partially knew of ration portability, but only 74% knew that inter-state portability is also possible.
- 52% of dealers did not use any exception handling when ePoS-based transactions failed due to connectivity or biometric authentication.
- 32% of PDS dealers believed their business model was not viable under portability, due to fear of poor customer retention or a lack of capacity to handle demand surges.
- 10% ran out of stock at least once in the three months preceding the survey,
“India’s move to launch a ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ scheme (ONORC) right before the pandemic, has served many. For the first time a migrant worker moving to a new city or a newly married woman setting up a household has been able to access their food entitlement. As the initiative gains nation-wide traction, we believe responding to some of the gaps, such as low awareness amongst beneficiaries of how and where they can access the portability features and reducing transaction failure rates is vital. Equally, learnings from the successes of early adopter states who have brought about important changes on the supply side, such as a flexible stock requisition system to better support PDS dealers, will prove crucial to helping put PDS in the hands of all”, said Swetha Totapally, Partner, Dalberg Advisors.
“The survey clearly shows that ONORC has made portability possible and that it can give citizens the ability to collect rations from a place of their choice. To make ONORC more inclusive and even more meaningful for every Indian, we need a focus on greater awareness of portability possibilities and technology upgradation of PDS dealers along with usage of offline methodologies to handle exceptions. ONORC can potentially play a key role in mitigating crises in the future by creating a seamless food safety net for Indians, no matter where they live and where they are from.” Shilpa Kumar, Partner, Omidyar Network India.
