Quantity Difference in the Commodities Distributed Under Public Distribution System (PDS) in Rural Kerala

: Kerala, one of the southern states in India has a renowned Public Distribution System (PDS). But due to various reasons the effectiveness of Kerala’s PDS is in question. As a food deficit state affected by rise in price of essential commodities we cannot dismantle the Public Distribution System (PDS) in Kerala. Thus, the proper functioning of PDS is inevitable in Kerala to ensure regular supply and stabilize the price of essential commodities. Provision of commodities to the beneficiaries accurate as per the entitlement is necessary for ensuring the effectiveness of the PDS. There are so many complaints noticed by beneficiaries regarding quantity difference in the commodities received. Hence the study inquired with the households whether there is any difference in quantity received from the PDS.


I. INTRODUCTION
Food is the pedestal for every human being.Now the world has sufficient food to feast its population but millions of people still suffer from starvation around the globe.If the entire food available in the world is equally distributed it will be more than the minimum requirement for each and every person (FAO,2009).But the food is not distributed wisely, and hence a considerable number of people die every year due to starvation.
In order to improve the food security for the poor, Government of India depends on a number of policy instruments like food for work programme, employment generation programme, school feeding, Public Distribution System (PDS) etc.Among these different policy measures, the Public Distribution System is considered as the most imperative because of the population covered and the volume of transaction.
The PDS as seen today evolved through a series of transformation during its history.Alarming drought and consequent food scarcity led to the birth of this type of a food-based safety net programme in India.A step in this regard was taken by the British rulers during 1939 when the Second World War started (Mukherjee, 2011).People were faced with severe food scarcity during this period and the British Government decided to distribute food grains to the poor people in the selected cities.This Government-owned distribution system was extended to some more cities after the Bengal famine in 1943.During its initial stage the PDS functioned merely as a rationing system to distribute the essential commodities during the periods of scarcity.But later it was transformed into Fair Price Shop (FPS) which is competing with the Private traders.In Kerala which is a food deficit state PDS, is a matter of hot discussion.The demand-supply gap in the case of rice broadened tremendously in Kerala (Karunakaran, 2013).Since the state depends heavily on other states for food grains and other essential commodities, the price increases at an alarming rate.The natural beauty of Kerala is well known in the world and the paddy field with its greenery adds to this beauty.The greenery is disappearing gradually, and Kerala is faced with a chronic food deficit situation.The area under paddy cultivation in Kerala is declining on a regular basis (Karunakaran, 2018) Kerala has a history of a well known Public Distribution System in terms of its coverage and volume of food grains distributed (Cyriac, Sam, & Jacob, 2008).But due to various reasons the effectiveness of Kerala's PDS is in question.As a food deficit state affected by rise in price of essential commodities we cannot dismantle the Public Distribution System (PDS) in Kerala.Thus, the proper functioning of PDS is inevitable in Kerala to ensure regular supply and stabilize the price of essential commodities.
Provision of commodities to the beneficiaries accurate as per the entitlement is necessary for ensuring the effectiveness of the PDS.There are so many complaints noticed by beneficiaries regarding quantity difference in the commodities received.Hence the study inquired with the households whether there is any difference in quantity received from the PDS.

Objectives
1. To assess the quantity difference in the commodities received from PDS 2. To examine whether the quantity difference is associated with the schemes of PDS 1.2 Hypotheses 1.There is no significant association among the different schemes of PDS with regard to the opinion about the quantity difference in the commodities received from fair price shops.2. There is no significant difference among the different schemes of PDS with regard to the mean value of quantity difference in the commodities received from fair price shops.
III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A multi-stage sampling method was employed for the selection of the sample households.The various stages involved in sampling method are given below: 1. Selection of sample districts 2. Selection of sample Fair Price Shops(FPSs) 3. Selection of sample households There are 1905842 rural ration card holders in the three selected districts, out of which 384 households were selected as sample households by using sample size calculator (Confidence level 95%, Confidence Interval 5).Simple random sampling method was employed for the selection of sample households in the three sample districts.From each district sample households were selected proportionately.
IV. DATA ANALYSIS, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Quantity Difference in the Commodities Distributed through the PDS Provision of commodities to the beneficiaries accurate as per the entitlement is necessary for ensuring the effectiveness of the PDS.There are so many complaints noticed by beneficiaries regarding quantity difference in the commodities received.Hence the study inquired with the households whether there is any difference in quantity received from the PDS.The opinion of the households in this regard is shown in the table given below.Source: Survey Data It can be observed from the above table that out of the 384 sample households 48.18 percent claimed that there are differences in the quantity received and quantity entitlement of commodities distributed under PDS.The remaining 51.82 percent of the households stated that there is no quantity differences in the commodities received under PDS.It is clear from the above table that the quantity difference is highest in the case of AAY category and lowest for NPNS households.It is important to note that there is a higher rate of difference in the quantity of commodities received and quantity entitled in all the categories except NPNS.It is evident from the analysis that the PDS is ineffective in ensuring the beneficiaries on receiving the entitled quantity of commodities.

Association among the Different Schemes of PDS with Regard to Quantity Difference
The Chi-Square test results show the association among the different schemes of PDS with regard to the opinion about the quantity difference in the commodities received from fair price shops are presented in table 1.1 Source: Survey Data Table 1.1 shows that the p-value is < 0.05 and hence the results suggest that there is significant association among the different schemes of PDS with regard to the opinion about the quantity difference in the commodities received from fair price shops.It reveals that the quantity difference in the commodities received from the fair price shops is depended on the different schemes of PDS under which the sample households are included.

Testing of Hypothesis H0:
There is no significant association among the different schemes of PDS with regard to the opinion about the quantity difference in the commodities received from fair price shops.
The opinion of the household customers regarding the association among the different schemes of PDS with regard to the quantity difference in the commodities received from fair price shops was analysed with the help of Chi-Square test.The Chi-Square test results show that the differences in opinion of households are statistically significant at 5 percent level.Hence the null hypothesis is rejected.

Descriptive Statistics on the Quantity Difference of Commodities Distributed under PDS
Descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, mean percentage and standard deviation percentage of the quantity difference in the commodities are computed.The quantity difference (kg) is computed by comparing the quantity of the commodities received by the beneficiaries and entitled quantity as per the provisions of the National Food Security Act (NFSA).The quantity of commodities entitled to different categories of households as given on the website of the Civil Supplies Department is taken into account to compute the quantity difference.
The commodities such as rice and wheat are considered for measuring the quantity difference.The kerosene has avoided while computing quantity difference because the quantity difference is insignificant as the quantity entitled is meagre.The difference in quantity received as a percentage of entitled quantity is also computed.The results of the analysis are given below.
Table 1 Source: Survey Data It is clear from the analysis that the mean values of quantity difference in rice and wheat are higher among AAY and Priority households.As compared to rice, the quantity difference is higher in the case of wheat.Among all the categories except NPNS, there is a considerable percentage of difference in quantity received and the quantity entitled by the beneficiary households.It points out the distribution ineffectiveness of the PDS.This difference in quantity is diverted to the open market and the subsidised PDS commodities sold at market price.
MANOVA to test the quantity difference in the commodities received from fair price shops The MANOVA test results show the quantity difference in the commodities received from fair price shops among the different schemes of PDS are presented in table 1 1.3 shows that the p-value is < 0.05 and hence the results suggest that there is a significant difference in the mean values of quantity difference in rice and wheat (F (6, 758) = 23.22,p-value < 0.05) among the different schemes of PDS.

Testing of Hypothesis H0:
There is no significant difference among the different schemes of PDS with regard to the mean value of quantity difference in the commodities received from fair price shops.
The quantity difference in the rice and wheat received from fair price shops among different schemes of PDS is analysed with the help of MANOVA.The MANOVA test results show that the differences in quantity are statistically significant at 5 percent level.Hence the null hypothesis is rejected.Since there is a significant difference among the different schemes of PDS with regard to the mean value of quantity difference in the commodities received, the test of between-subject effects are conducted.The results are given in table 1.4 Source: Survey Data Test of between-subject effects was conducted to understand whether there is a significant difference in the quantity difference among the rice and wheat which are supplied through PDS.The above results suggest that there is significant difference in the mean value of quantity difference in rice (F (3, 380) = 14.644, p-value < .001)and wheat (F (3, 380) = 44.599,p-value < .001)supplied through PDS.As there is a significant difference in mean values of quantity difference in the rice and wheat among the schemes, LSD post-hoc test is used to test for the pair wise difference.

Table 1 .
1: Chi-Square test results: Association among the different schemes of PDS with regard to quantity difference .3 Table 1.3: MANOVA test results: quantity difference in the commodities received from fair price shops among the different schemes of PDS .