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How to break the ration-shop monopoly in PDS

What One Nation One Ration Card has given the cardholder is freedom and thereby empowerment.

Tying entitlements to geography was a non-trivial gap in the safety net. The 2020 lockdown made the cost of that gap brutally visible. (Illustration by C R Sasikumar/File)

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4 min read Oct 22, 2026 06:19 AM IST First published on: Oct 22, 2026 at 06:19 AM IST

India runs the world’s largest food-based safety net programme, in which six in 10 Indians draw subsidised cereals each month from one of 5 lakh fair-price shops (FPS). Until 2019, the entitlements were tied to the address on the card. A worker who left his village for a Punjab paddy field, a Delhi construction site, or a Surat textile mill could not draw his or her grain at destination. Poor workers, however, move constantly in search of wages and employment.…