Below blog was written in 2017 and was not published in my name then.
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One of the
most talked about subject in Kerala is the implementation of NFSA (National
Food safety Act). May be the importance of this subject has been overshadowed
by the demonetisation of high value currencies. But I am very sure that the
people of Kerala, especially the people who belong to the economically weak
strata, are keenly watching what the government of Kerala is planning to do
with this important project for the state. I am not very sure whether the state
leadership has completely comprehended the real opportunity for our state in implementing
this programme as a foundation of many forward looking reforms. As a
democratically elected communist government, this can be the new age revolution
that can make a series of social changes and continue its cause of social
equality, but this time through use of technology and process improvements
rather than any form of mass movement of people.
I very
strongly believe this is a grand opportunity for the state to leapfrog into a
model state in optimised usage of technology that positively improve the life
of common man. To grab this opportunity, a strong resolve is imperative from
the leadership to create a vision and a total commitment from the officers of
concerned departments to have an implementation strategy with the help of
subject matter experts in several areas. As a person who has studied this
opportunity and have interacted with a several persons who have been entrusted
this programme, I see that there is absence of much needed imagination and
technical creativity. I have personally watched many strategic projects having
very complex system integration requirements getting implemented very
successfully by government bodies in many countries, and I think it is more
than their internal capability, it is their eagerness to listen from industry
experts and determination to succeed in delivering the programme with a high
quality, made all the difference. This article is just an attempt from me to
share a brief on what I have gathered about this project combined with my
thoughts. I will be happy if this will shed some light on the subject and
become useful for those who care for our special state.
At the heart
of NFSA act, there is an extremely important purpose and spirit which can be
easily explained and understood by any average person. NFSA is intended to
provide a survival quantity of food grains and other items to the citizens,
especially those who are in the low income group. The federal and the state governments
will have to cooperate in procuring required food grains and other scheduled items,
and distribute it to the citizens at subsidised rates. The intention is very
noble and the distribution network is already existing in India, and Kerala
state has a very good network of fair price shops, better compared to most of
the other states in India. Then what is the problem? Everyone assumes that the
distribution network has leakages everywhere. Pilferages in every step of the
chain makes the system extremely inefficient that the intended quantity of the food
grains is seldom delivered to the public. So, many in the chain, such as the
brokers, transporters, wholesalers, retail outlets make a fat profit out of the
public distribution system and the citizens does not receive the intended benefits
from it. This is why the second part of NFSA is very important. NFSA requires
the state governments to automate the public distribution system and make it
independent of any unnecessary entities in the entire supply chain system. Unless
this part is achieved, the Federal government will not provide us with the required
quota of subsidised supplies to our state, which is already reeling under food
deficit and will be in more trouble.
So the first
question is how to move forward and achieve this. And second question is do we
have the money to do it. The third question is, do we have the capability to do
it. My impression is, the state do not know how to handle this yet, do not have
the budget and have no capability to do this at present. None of the public
sector units under kerala state or central government agency cannot deliver a
solution for all the above three questions. I do not see a strategy to address
this herculean programme and no strategic vision for the state and a clear goal
setting. It is fine not to have one, if there is an effort in that direction,
but my observation is that there is neither a comprehensive body of knowledge
built for this nor have a panel of experts who can address a complex project in
a comprehensive manner, so that this project can become a foundation for the
state and can build on it further. I
re-iterate again my belief that, this is an opportunity for Kerala to be a
model not only for the country but for many other governments across the world
to follow, if this programme is well conceived and effectively implemented.
I would like
to build this illustration in two parts. First part to establish my thoughts on
what are the various parts of this programme. Second part is how this can be
implemented. I may be partly complete in my explanation of the requirements,
but I think this could be a baseline and many other professionals and
organisations from private and government entities would be able to contribute
further to enhance this, so that the goals to achieve by executing this project
can be very clear to all stakeholders. If we know the goals to be achieved
clearly, it will be easier to deploy our resources behind it and can hope to achieve
it in a time bound manner. Usual practice in such government projects are the
opposite and hence lot of rework and long gestation time that makes the project
partially or fully defunct.
Let me start
with the first part. What are the various parts of this programme and what are
the goals that we need to pursue to achieve an optimal result. I am going to
outline this by breaking it broadly into (1) what is essential in this
programme and (2) what are the possible additional benefits that can be drawn
out of this huge investment.
1.
The essential parts of the programme
are the following :
a.
Eliminate all middlemen between the sources
of the material supply such as FCI or farmers and the retail ration shops by
establishing government owned stocking locations. This means that Supplyco, on
behalf of civil supplies department will have to identify godowns across the
state and also have to identify the human resources to manage them. By having
government’s own staff and godowns, the chances of misappropriation and
manipulation of stocks by external parties will be eradicated. Goods in transit
is another major point of pilferage. In the new process goods would be
transported from its supply sources directly to the godowns and later directly distributed
to the ration shops. That means there are two segments of transportation and for
both the segments, routes of transportation has to be clearly defined and transport agencies has to be enlisted who are
willing to comply with the new norms. While the supply segment would comprises
of few hundred routes, as they will be from FCI godowns to Supplyco godowns in
every taluks, the distribution segment would be of several thousands of routes
due to the number of ration shops spread across the state which exceeds 14,000
outlets. It is very important to automate the entire process of material
movement from (a) forecasting & planning the material requirements, (b) allocating available material to various
retail ration shops based on the buffer stock and replenishment mechanism(In
this manner, initially a quality will be supplied based on their statistical
off-take quantity. Based on consumption data for every month, quantity of the
replenishment will be determined) (c) Procurement order processing for each
godowns and inventory control and management, (d) managing goods in transit
with stock quantity reconciliation between supply and receipt at locations, (e)
sales order processing of goods in stock based on retail ration shop’s sales
orders and stock distribution based on stock availability, buffer stock and
replenishment rules (f) geo-fencing the routes (a method of restricting
transportation vehicles from any deviation from its defined route while
transporting goods from the sources to its destinations), central control
centre to monitor and penalise transporter for any route rules violations such
as deviation from the approved routes, halt etc. It is also important to
implement many other support systems to ensure that operation and maintenance
of these systems will take place seamlessly. I would like to suggest a few
examples here, (1) there could be many grievances, suggestions, new ideas for
improvement will arise from all quarters of the supply chain regarding the door
to door delivery process and related activities, which needs to be collected
using a public facing portals, smart phone mobile app, social media forums etc
and has to be channelled efficiently through pre-defined processes and each
case should be given it due importance and a time bound remedial action. Example
(2) is an inspection management system that will randomly allocation inspectors
to stock locations to verify the quality, quantity and safe storage of stocks
with handheld devices that can update the inspection details and findings with
audio/video/photo proofs etc that can be updated instantly. Example (3) is a
transportation system where transporters can register their vehicles so that
the vehicles can be fitted with GPS equipments and approved followed by
communication with transporter for coordination for vehicle requirements for
each location, queue management at each go downs and Penalty(fines or other
legal methods) against route violations.
b.
We need to ensure that the people are
profiled correctly based on their economic, social, educational background with
information available to the state administrative machinery in a manner that
the demographic data can be used to taking any decisive actions. We already
have quite a bit of this data, although it require refinement by way of improving
accuracy. In this a very important approach is de-duplication of ration cards
and de-duplication of family members. In deduplication of ration cards, same
families having duplicate cards are to be identified and removed.
De-duplication of members of family in multiple ration cards have to be
removed. One of the important requirement in this direction is to link all the
family members with Aadhar number. By making aadhar mandatory for all ration
card members, we can directly eliminate duplicates, but this is a time
consuming process, as the process has to involve the citizens before striking
off their names or cancelling their cards. As per the NFSA guideline, the
current ration card booklet has to be replaced with smartcard and the ration
shops would do all transaction based on biometric identification of the family
member who identifies by presenting the smart card. It is even more time
consuming to replace the current ration card booklet with smart card,
especially when the smart card should be issued based on Aadhar based biometric
verification to ensure that the smart card is issued correctly. As people of
the state will have to be prepared to face some difficulty and should cooperate
with the government as all the members of each family have to identify
themselves in person to a government officer or an authorised person in order
to obtain the smart card. This is a
unique opportunity for the state to capture accurate data. In all our previous
attempts to collect demographic data of the citizens, state has been satisfied
with the self-declared data without any proof of the details collected, which
has led to many discrepancies in classifying individuals and families in their
economic and social strata. I hope this opportunity would be utilised properly
by the state and the smartcard issued would be hundred percent accurate, which
will form the basis for many other initiatives in the future. This part of the
programme in not a onetime activity, if
the accuracy of the data has to remain, the state has to put a permanent setup
for continuous amendments of the data as the data once collected are tend to
change over time. The current amendment of ration card process has to be
relaunched with a well thought approach, so that the process should not dilute
the accuracy and reliability of the profile data. As a citizen, one of my
biggest fear is, that the state will do this activity as a standalone
requirement for public distribution system (PDS). An accurate and reliable
demographic data that is biometrically verifiable for all family members
registered in the card is an authentic proof about the economic and social
strata of all citizens of the state and will become a solid foundation for
every government department to carry out their responsibilities involving
people. I would be discussing this with some examples later in this article.
The process of transitioning from the existing booklet to a smart card, the elimination
of duplicates, and the continuous amendments requires a set of tools and human
resources. Laptops and smart phones with internet connectivity has penetrated
even remote villages today, although not everyone is not conversant with the
usage of these facilities. But I strongly believe that the state has to
approach it with a conviction that the usage of these technology is going to
become a norm for all people in a few years’ time. Hence government should put
a modern, web portal and mobile app to gather the data and to communicate with
people, so we can avoid long queues for this transition, except for biometric
validation of the submitted data. Ofcourse, those people who does not have
access to smart phones or web portal can be given the same services with the
help of government machinery or external agencies. The web portal and the
mobile apps thus developed should be the window for viewing the status of their
card application, viewing the details of all card details including the details
of the members, any application for amendments to the details of the card,
appointments with designated officials for verification of any supporting
documents with biometric authentication and any other interactions between the
public and the citizens for maintaining the demographic data using the smart
card. All the media has to be updated with documentation about the project and
take their help to make sure that the steps to be done by each citizen, so that
people know what needs to be done exactly.
c.
The third essential part of this
programme is to equip all the ration shops with a retail Point of Sale(POS)
equipment, which is capable of handling several aspects of the transactions
that happens normally in a retail ration outlet and all other possible
transactions that we can anticipate to happen in the future. Such possible
transactions for the future can be discussed later in this article. Let us now
discuss, the several aspects that the POS equipment has to handle. Let me
enumerate them below :
i.
This equipment should be able to
communicate with the supply chain system for placing the stock request to the
godown so that the material can be shipped from the godown to the corresponding
retail outlet along with regular route delivery schedule. The retail ration
shop owner can see the status of his orders and schedule of delivery dates and quality,
which will help him update the card holders on the arrival of goods during
short or delayed shipments due to various reasons which are the beyond the
control of the civil supplies department.
ii.
This equipment should be able to
communicate with the central card holder database for registering and
de-registering ration card with his/her ration shops. This functionality will
help a ration shop to have a loyal following of card holders and plan the stock
requirements of the shop to cater to the registered card members.
iii.
The POS equipment should have a
provision to swipe the card to capture the card number and other necessary
details stored in the card, so that the Aadhar numbers of that card can be
retrieved instantly so that the next step of biometric validation of the member
would be possible. The POS equipment should be equipped to validate a card
member prior to any kind of transaction using Aadhar biometric credentials.
iv.
The POS equipment should be equipped
with a point of sales transaction (POS) system which will enable the retail
shop keeper to capture the items sold to any card holder by electronically
capturing the weight of items sold from an electronic weighing scale which is
interfaced with the POS machine. POS
system should pick the rates automatically and calculate the sale value and
print a bill for the customer.
v.
The POS equipment should also be
equipped with a notification system that can send SMS messages for various
intimations to a registered telephone number. These intimations could include
many a lot more than (a) transaction details, (b) one time passwords (OTP) for
validating a member in case the bio-metric validation is not possible for the
transaction whenever a substitute is sent to the ration shop by a card member
for purchasing the allocated quota for their family, (c) information regarding
the arrival and availability of goods in the shop etc.
vi.
The equipment should be capable of
stock reconciliation for his shop and get the stock position for all items at
any given point of time. It should be able to retrieve all his historical
transactions from a central server and should be able to update all
transactions to a central server during off-peak hours.
d.
While we have looked at the core
elements of the PDS requirements under a,b,c above, there are several support
systems are required to make this programme work without any glitches. For
example, a call centre that can support retail ration shop keepers,
transportation agencies and card holders are required for all kind of support
requirements. There has to be a departmental portal that has several user
groups within the civil supplies department, supplyco and any other department
to carry out their business functions related to public distribution.
e.
We cannot forget the indirect usages
of the current ration card booklet. There are many places and several
situations require ration card booklet need to be presented on demand as a
proof of identity of people and the demographic data printed on the ration card
is used as a proof of income, caste/religion classifications, domicile, and
relationship between family members and so on.
When the PDS system is implemented with a plastic card, no such data
will be printed on the card that is readable with human eye or provide as an attested
photocopy for any purpose. Hence there should be a facility to query such
details by using a smartphone app, Web and SMS query. This query facility
should be free, easily accessible without any technical constraints and should
be simple to use without any training for users.
2.
If wisdom prevails to treat this
programme as one of the foundation blocks for the future of Kerala state, many
other strategic projects can be done with minimum incremental cost and time. Like
I have mentioned before, there are a few sub-projects which may not be essential
but can be very useful for the citizens to be considered as a part of this
project. Some examples are illustrated below.
a.
One of the most talked about subject
today is digital payments. Payments which were done using hard currency earlier
can be replaced using an electronic purse (eWallet) for every family. Any
family member should be able to add money to the ration card which in-turn can
be used in ration shops, government offices, university/schools and any other
authorised cashier locations. This facility will help families to spend money
which is earned by a family member living in another location. This will
eliminate the dependency on bank account and enable people belong to
economically weaker class to be equipped with digital payment transaction.
b.
Government financial aids to help
people who are affected with calamities like flood, landslide, tsunami,
epidemic, draught etc currently are channelled through government offices or
other institutions which reaches the deserving people either with much delay or
with much hardships and it has been always a source of corruption and
inefficiency. When the government has a central database of all families in the
state with all their demographic data required to determine who is eligible for
any such aid, the state can directly transfer the amount to the ration card of
the deserving families. This amount can be withdrawn from ATMs or can be spend
for any services or goods which support an ePOS machine like a Debit card of a
bank. Ideally this card should be linked to Payment networks such as Rupay,
Visa, and Master etc. Just imagine a situation in which, all the welfare
schemes including that of Fishermen pension, Coir workers’ pension, peasants’
pension, widows’ pension and many such state government financials aids are
loaded directly on their ration card with appropriate payment rules.
c.
Ration shops could become micro-ATM
locations. Cash collected by the Fair Price shops are normally deposited at a
bank. Rather than depositing the money in a bank, these shops can help people
withdraw cash from the shop keeper by swiping any credit card or debit card,
including those are issued by foreign banks. This will help the ration shop
owner from a trip to the bank for depositing his cash and also people including
tourists who are visiting small villages having access to cash without going to
an ATM. I believe this will be a useful feature of the state for visiting
tourists.
d.
When we have an accurate registry of
people of the state with clear classification, with a biometric validation link
directly or with the help of Aadhar, there are many functions of the state can
benefit from it. Some of these can be revenue collection for the state, Cross
subsidising in healthcare and education, linking vehicle and driving licences
for traffic fines etc.
e.
We could have a citizen participation
in policy making, as the communication between the administration and people
can become direct and through various channels such as telephone, SMS, email,
web, mobile phone or even call centres. Connecting professionals and creating
special volunteer groups can create a new world and a new culture in the Kerala
state which can be a model for other states.
f.
At present Fair price shops are subsidy
centric shops. Why not the fair price shops can be extended to become regular shops
with more centralised purchasing of goods by state and distributing at much
less price compared to open market. This will keep the inflation under control
throughout the year and people will have an affordable source for their needful
items.
g.
Profiling of people in an accurate
manner will have ability to connect those who are interested in philanthropy to
those needy people in a reliable manner. Needy people can be sponsored for
their genuine needs based on data that can be trusted.
I hope this
illustration would help the reader to understand the possibilities that Kerala
state has in executing this programme in a comprehensive manner. Executing this
programme in “Business as usual” approach would be a cardinal sin and will lead
to colossal waste of resources and denial of a good opportunity for the people
of this most literate state. As a Malayali who strongly feel for the people of
Kerala, I am sharing my thoughts through this article. My intension is not to
taunt anyone in the leadership or in any position of power, but to help them in
the right decision making. In case whatever is shared by me is redundant as you
the leadership has already understood and have formed a vision I will be very
glad that my next article might help them for get more clarity in how this
project can be implemented. In the second part of this article, I am intending
to illustrate how this project can be rolled out, its technical challenges and
how the state should overcome and succeed in this unique opportunity.
