The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution has introduced a new scheme called the "Integrated Management of Public Distribution System" (IM-PDS) to integrate the existing PDS systems/portals of states and UTs with the central systems/portals. The scheme will also introduce national portability of ration cards to allow the users to get foodgrains from any fair price shop (FPS) across the country and keep a tabs on de-duplication of ration cards/beneficiary. The scheme, which will be implemented during 2018-19 and 2019-20, was announced by Danve Raosaheb Dadarao, the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, in the Lok Sabha. The scheme is also aims to use advanced data analytics techniques to bring about continuous improvements. What is public distribution system? The public distribution system (PDS) is a central and state government system to tackle food scarcity through…
