A Grocer to Delhi’s Poor

Courtesy of Pamposh Raina Arjun Abrol, a fair price shop owner, dealing with his customers in Paharganj, New Delhi.

India runs one of the world’s largest subsidized food distribution programs, covering 330 million people, including 65.2 million families, with an annual household income below 24,200 rupees, or $405â€"the official poverty line. With a government-issued ration card, families below the poverty line are entitled to buy 35 kilograms of grain a month, including wheat and rice. Some Indian states also offer kerosene and small quantities of sugar at subsidized prices. Around 500,000 “fair price” stores participate in the program known as India’s Public Distribution System.

Pamposh Raina met a “fair price” store owner and his customers in Delhi.

On a muggy July afternoon, Arjun Abrol, a 62-year-old shopkeeper, who sells wheat, rice and sugar, waited for customers at his “fair price” shop in the Paharganj area of central Delhi. His store is one of around 2,500 stores in Delhi that are licensed by the government to sell grain at subsidized prices to the poorest Indians.

“We are awaiting this month’s supply of rice and sugar, which is unusually late by a few days,” Mr. Abrol said.

Mr. Abrol had not heard of the executive order on food security President Pranab Mukherjee signed on Friday, after the Cabinet approved it on Wednesday. To become a law, a majority in both houses of Parliament must approve it within six weeks of its monsoon session, which will commence later this month. The law would establish a legal right to food for more than 700 million impoverished Indians. It would require an annual supply of 61.2 million tons of grain and cost 1.2 trillion rupees, or $20 billion, in the current fiscal year.

Manish Swarup/Associated Press A woman filling subsidized rice into a sack at a fair price shop in Rayagada, Orissa on March 21, 2012.

The proposed law would guarantee a minimum monthly supply of five kilograms of grain to two-thirds of India’s 1.2 billion population at highly subsidized prices: two rupees (3 cents) for a kilogram of wheat, three rupees (4 cents) per kilogram of rice and one rupee for a kilogram of coarse grains. If enough grain is unavailable, the law would provide a food security allowance.  It also promises 6,000 rupees to pregnant women and lactating mothers.

Although India is one of the world’s leading food producers and the second largest producer of wheat and rice, next only to China, it is home to a quarter of the world’s hungry poor, according to the United Nations. One in three undernourished children across the globe live here.

Most customers at Mr. Abrol’s shop were women, although the ration cards carried the names of their husbands or other male relatives. Ganga Devi, a part-time domestic worker, who was buying her monthly supply of 25 kilograms of wheat, listened intently to Mr. Abrol as he stressed the importance of the rations for the underprivileged.

“Will they take away this too?” Ms. Devi asked.

“At first, the government gave us some sugar as well, but then they stopped,” she said. “When we couldn’t afford vegetables, my daughter would eat her roti with sugar.”

Ms. Devi, 35, cleans dishes, mops floors and washes clothes in three to four houses every day. She makes around 1,200 rupees, or  $20, in a month. Her husband, a fruit vendor, makes between 3,000 and 4,500 rupees, or $50 to $75, in a month. She is not considered among the poorest of the poor, and so does not get subsidized sugar.

The food guaranteed through the public distribution system is not enough to meet the demand. Critics say that corruption and mismanagement along the supply chain lead to leakage of a substantial quantity of grain meant for the poor. According to one estimate in a World Bank report, only 41 percent of the grain reaches the intended households. Tons of grain rot in the warehouses of Food Corporation of India, the official agency for grain procurement, storage and allocation.

Ms. Devi, who is the mother of a 13-year-old who attends a local government school, said the family struggles to feed her. The monthly supply of subsidized grain only lasts 20 days, after which her family is forced to borrow money to buy grain at market prices, she said. “We can barely save anything for her education,” Ms. Devi said. “I don’t want money from the government, I want more food.”

Darshana Devi, a 50-year-old housewife who lives with her family of 12 in a nearby tenement, says it is impossible to feed her family with 35 kilograms of grain a month. Her husband, a factory worker, makes 150 rupees, or $2.50, a day. Two of her married sons are also employed in a local factory, but they don’t have their own ration cards. “The government is not issuing new ration cards,” she said.

A store assistant weighed 25 kilograms of wheat in a steel canister and transferred it to an empty sack for her. After making sure that the measure was accurate, she produced her ration card, which Mr. Abrol stamped.  Mr. Abrol’s store is supposed to provide monthly supplies to 1,028 ration card holders in Paharganj and nearby areas.

To ensure a regular supply, every fair price shop owner is required to deposit a bank draft at the beginning of each month based on the amount of commodities he procures. Mr. Abrol said he recently deposited 140,000 rupees in a bank account of the Delhi State Civil Supplies Corporation.

His grandfather had set up the store as a general grocery in the 1920s. His father turned it into a fair price shop in 1965. Mr. Abrol has to renew the license for his shop every three years. An official from the government’s Food and Supplies Department audits the stocks for quantity and quality, checks the accounts, and notes the prices at which the ration has been supplied.

“They also test to see if the weighing scales are accurate,” Mr. Abrol said. “But no rules have been specified for the storage conditions for the grain.”

As the evening set in, a woman walked into the store and picked a handful of wheat from an unsealed bag lying on the floor and complained about its poor quality. The husk was black.

“That’s what we got from the government,” said Mr. Abrol, who was visibly annoyed. “If you don’t like it, check back later. This is all we have.”

To deal with such dissatisfied customers, the proposed food security law would establish a system to address grievances at the state and district level, which could include setting up of helplines and call centers.

Mr. Abrol said that he earns .35 rupees for every kilogram of wheat and rice he sells, and nothing on sugar. He seemed not unlike his impoverished customers, floating slightly above the poverty line.

“My wife keeps scolding me for running a business that doesn’t make enough money,” Mr. Abrol said. He worries about being unable to marry off his youngest daughter.

“I am growing old,” he said. “But running this shop is what has kept me going all my life.”