When 48-year-old Milan Kumar Jha read about the Modi government’s ‘One Nation One Ration’ scheme in a newspaper in February, he immediately...
When 48-year-old Milan Kumar Jha read about the Modi government’s ‘One Nation One Ration’ scheme in a newspaper in February, he immediately rushed to the nearest government ration shop.
In the 30 years that he had been working in Mumbai, initially as a labourer and then as a rickshaw puller, Jha had not been able to access subsidised foodgrain in city ration shops, even though he and his family are enrolled in the public distribution system back home in their village in Bihar’s Madhubani district.
This is because, until recently, ration beneficiaries in India could only draw grain from the ration shop where they are registered, usually the one closest to their native homes. As a result, rural migrants, who come to work in cities and lack documentation to register in the urban public distribution system, are unable to access food support even during crises like the coronavirus lockdown.
But the newspaper report that Jha read in February claimed that all this had changed with One Nation One Ration, a scheme launched by the Central government in 2019, which was being implemented by states. Under the scheme, as long as an individual was enrolled under the National Food Security Act, they could access subsidised foodgrains...
