The minister who was replying to a starred question in the Lok Sabha on Thursday said that the TECS study has identified major causes of diversion and suggested remedial measures to curb diversion. The major causes cited in the study are bulk diversion from godowns, bogus units in ration cards, under weighing of commodities at various levels, illiteracy of consumers, low profit margins for fair price shop (FPS) owners, floating population, fictitious distribution agencies, non-availability and irregularity in supply of commodities, variation in entitlement and inferior quality of commodities.

The study also suggested certain remedial measures to curb diversion like avoiding monthly variation in allocations, minimising storage and transit loss, avoiding distribution by agencies other than FPS, weeding out bogus units in ration cards and bogus ration cards, improving communication between FCI and state governments and FPS, increase in profit margins for FPS owners and gradually phasing out the affluent section of the population from the purview of PDS.

The minister stated that the Centre is responsible for procurement, storage and transportation of PDS commodities up to the central godowns and making them available to the states. The responsibility for distribution to the consumers through FPS and administration of the PDS rests with the concerned states and Union territories. He said that though many states disagreed with the estimates of diversion brought out in the study, they recognised that leakages do take place.