BENGALURU: A simple tech upgrade is helping more people access their monthly food rations from ration shops, shows a study conducted by researchers from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore among others. When people were allowed to see which nearby ration shops were open and given the choice to collect their food from any of them using electronic Point-of-Sale (ePoS) devices, the collection of ration picking was up by 6.6%, the study has found.
Under India’s Public Distribution System (PDS), households below the poverty line are usually linked to just one Fair Price Shop (FPS) for their monthly grain rations. Some shops are unreliable, some are closed, and some are run by shopkeepers who don’t treat people fairly. In the earlier system, if the assigned shop didn’t work well, beneficiaries had little choice but to put up with it or go without food. But with the introduction of ePoS devices, they could now switch to another functioning shop nearby.
The research, which was done in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, covered more than 8 million beneficiaries, did not require any new infrastructure. The shops already had ePoS devices and all the system did was allow the beneficiaries to make a choice as per availability and favouring factors. In places where people had many shops to choose from, the increase was almost “four times” higher.
The study also highlighted that most people still went to the same shop they were originally assigned to. But now, those shopkeepers had a reason to improve their service. Just the fact that customers could leave pushed them to open on time, follow the rules, and treat people better.