Madi Eswari, 50, of Kolanara block in Rayagada is managing at last to keep hunger at bay. She is being helped by technology, or to be precise bar codes, to put an end to the rampant pilferage that marks the public distribution system (PDS) in this tribal district in Odisha where some of the poorest in the country live.The entirety of the article is an excellent study of how the poor are exploited, why it's hard to help, and how biometrics are being used to try to change that.
Earlier, despite having a ration card entitling her to subsidised rice at Rs 2 a kilo through the PDS, Eswari would be forced to buy rice in the open market at five times this price because local fair price shop claimed that stocks of subsidised rice had not come in. “Every time I went there, the shopkeeper would tell me to come back the next day. Sometimes I would find that someone else had taken my quota of foodgrains, and I didn't know what to do about it. With this new ration card at least I get what is my due at the subsidised price,” she says.
The implementation of the biometric ration card system that is helping to ease Eswari's life is an initiative of the Odisha state government in collaboration with the United Nations World Food Programme.
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