Editorial 1: SMART PDS scheme: A bold initiative in digitisation
Context:
- The National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA), governs the country’s largest beneficiary-centric programme. The Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) provides food security to 81.35 crore persons every month.
- In order to minimize leakage and wider coverage government introduced modern reform in PDS system while using digital technology.
Scheme for Modernisation and Reforms through Technology in Public Distribution System (SMART-PDS)
- As the Centre has begun moving towards the implementation of the Scheme for Modernisation and Reforms through Technology in Public Distribution System (SMART-PDS) to prevent leakage of foodgrains, increasing the efficiency of the distribution chain and ensuring the availability of such provisions for migrants, a lot of data is being generated and stored every day by states/UTs.
- Data Analytics on the TPDS ecosystem is allowing us to generate critical information about the beneficiaries, their food security needs and patterns of migration.
- Challenges related to SMART-PDS:
- The lack of credible and dynamic data on consumption and mobility patterns was always a big challenge for planners to ensure efficient delivery of critical central welfare schemes to the most vulnerable sections of our society.
- It was felt that the data generated can be leveraged for the delivery of many other central schemes and welfare programmes.
- As, The SMART-PDS is initiative of the Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD) to implement data-driven decision-making will go a long way in addressing this deficit.
- Convergence and integration with the use of AI can really be a game changer for people as well as governments in bringing accountability across all programmes. The national leadership deserves credit for pushing through these vital trans-ministerial convergences.
Use of ICT for efficient deliverance of PDS:
- The Centre now plans to use the data analytics/BI platforms and other ICT tools and technologies and deepen PDS reforms.
- There will be a standardisation of the PDS operation through the use of technology and integrating the same with FCI, CWC, transport supply chain of rail and road, Ministry of Education, Women and Child Development and UIDAI.
- Technology-led reforms are expected to overcome the state-level technological limitations of PDS operations concerning IT hardware, software and technical manpower.
- This will also institutionalise an integrated central system for all PDS-related operations across all states/UTs.
- As, currently nearly 93 per cent of the total monthly allocated foodgrains are distributed through the Aadhaar authentication mode using electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) devices.
- This dividend is directly attributed to the 100 per cent digitisation of ration cards, online management of beneficiaries’ data, computerisation of foodgrains’ allocation and supply chain management systems in all states/UTs and the installation of ePoS devices in almost the entire country.
Integrated Management of Public Distribution System (IM-PDS):
- To sustain the reforms brought in by the End-to-end Computerisation of TPDS Operations scheme and address the above key challenges, the government has launched a Central Sector Scheme – Integrated Management of Public Distribution System (IM-PDS).
- Its main objectives are:
- Implementation of One Nation One Ration Card (nation-wide portability),
- creation of a national-level data repository for de-duplication of beneficiary/ration cards data;
- creation of integrated data infrastructure/systems across ration card management; allocation,
- supply chain of foodgrains and FPS automation among Centre and all states.
- Presently, the ONORC plan is seamlessly functional in all 36 States/UTs and is consistently recording over 3.5 crore monthly portable transactions.
- This count is steadily improving. Since its inception in August 2019 in just four states, ONORC has so far recorded more than 100 crore portability transactions, including both inter-state and intra-state transactions.
- The data generated during this process has now become a tool for many other central ministries and state governments.
Way forward:
- Some of these spinoffs include benefits for the e-Shram Portal, Ayushman Bharat, and PM-Street Vendors AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM-SVANidhi) Yojana.
- The Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare (MoAFW) envisages family-based ONORC/ration card data to map the beneficiaries.
- Similarly, with the granting unique of a unique (Aadhaar) number to the newly born, the possibility of tracking their nutrition from ICDS centres to PM Poshan and then as PDS beneficiaries in a seamless manner will become a reality. These are only a few examples list can be exhaustive.
- Therefore, The scope of SMART PDS is clearly beyond just ration distribution.
Editorial 2: 2020-2030: possible ‘lost’ decade: Why 2020-2030 has the makings of a lost decade for the global economy
Recent Context:
- From the perspective of the global economy, the year 2023 started off on a mildly optimistic note. As top policymakers and CEOs met in Davos, there was a sense that the global economy might be able to dodge the chances of a recession in 2023.
- The IMF’s World Economic Outlook in January provided a salutary stamp to that notion. However, the recent collapses in the banking sector had yet again ratcheted up the apprehensions of a recession.
- In this context, a new research publication by the World Bank, titled “Falling Long-Term Growth Prospects”, argues that the current decade (2020-2030) “could be a lost decade in the making—not just for some countries or regions as has occurred in the past but for the whole world.”
- The World Bank has found that the overlapping crises of the past few years — Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resultant spike in inflation as well as monetary tightening have ended a span of nearly three decades of sustained economic growth
Key analysis of World Bank publication:
- Starting in 1990, productivity surged, incomes rose, and inflation fell. Within a generation, about one out of four developing economies leaped to high-income status. Today nearly all the economic forces that drove economic progress are in retreat
- WB warns that without a big and broad policy push to rejuvenate it, the global average potential GDP growth ratethe theoretical growth rate an economy can sustain over the medium term based on investment and productivity rates without risking excess inflationis expected to fall to a three-decade low of 2.2% a year between now and 2030, down from 2.6% in 2011-21 and 3.5% during the first decade of this century.
- While the report talks about global growth slowdown, the main hurt will be felt by emerging economies such as India.
- As “A persistent and broad-based decline in long-term growth prospects imperils the ability of emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) to combat poverty, tackle climate change, and meet other key development objectives
What are the reasons for the slowdown?
- The World Bank report recounts a 2015 research request by Kaushik Basu, to assess the long-term growth prospects of emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs).
- The fundamental drivers include things like
- capital accumulation (through investment growth),
- labour force growth, and
- the growth of total factor productivity (which is the part of economic growth that results from more efficient use of inputs and which is often the result of technological changes) etc.
What about India?
- Even though India has also lost its growth momentum over the past two decades, it is and will likely remain a global leader when it comes to growth rates.
- India falls under the South Asia Region (SAR), which is expected to be fastest growing among emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) for the remainder of this decade.
- AS per WB, “Economic activity in the South Asia region (SAR) rebounded strongly from the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, expanding by 7.9 percent in 2021 after a drop of 4.5 percent in 2020.
- Output in the region is on track to grow by about 6.0 percent a year between 2022 and 2030, faster than the 2010s annual average of 5.5 percent and only moderately slower than growth in the 2000s,”
What can be done to boost potential global growth? (Way forward)
- According to the World Bank, if all countries make a strong push, potential global GDP growth can be boosted by 0.7 percentage point—to an annual average rate of 2.9%; this would be faster than the preceding decade (when the global economy grew by 2.6%) but still slower than the first decade of 2000s (when the growth clocked 3.5% per annum).
- There are six priority interventions suggested by the report to boost potential growth:
- incentivise investments into the economy,
- boost labour force participation rates (especially for women),
- cut trade costs
- capitalise on service exports,
- improve global cooperation,
- ensure that fiscal policies and monetary policies don’t run against each other (for instance,
- government expenditures raising deficits at a time when central banks are trying to contain inflation).