ISB Research | Building choice into public services: Lessons and insights from PDS in Telangana

India's massive Public Distribution System (PDS) provides 160 million families with rations at subsidised prices, making it one of the world's biggest welfare programmes. Yet a significant number of eligible people have, over the years, been unable to collect the rations for various reasons. An underlying reason has been that households were tied to an assigned shop, turning these shops into monopolies. Governments have looked to solve the monopoly by using biometrics as identification, thus making the choice of shop possible for the targeted beneficiaries.
ISB faculty and their co-researchers have studied if and how this change could help improve public welfare. In this video, two of the researchers break it down, and chart its implications.
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The video is based on the research paper: Technology-Enabled Agent Choice and Uptake of Social Assistance Programs: Evidence from India’s Food Security Program (By Rakesh Allu, Maya Ganesh, Sarang Deo, Sripad K. Devalkar) Full paper is available at: shorturl.at/rzWgZ
To understand how the "choice of shop" would play out on the ground in simpler words, you may also read: shorturl.at/Wydij
Chapters
India's Public Distribution System, and monopoly effect (00:00)
Benefits of choice of shop for ration beneficiaries (01:07)
Role of tech, and impact on the ground in Telangana (03:24)
Surprise in the findings, and the magic of competition (06:08)
Suggestions on 'One Nation One Ration Card' (07:50)
Global implications (09:40)
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[@SAARCtoday]

PDS is an amazing program. Yes, it's great to refine the Program Execution for Public Benefit. Great to know that ISB Team is doing Optimization Study for enhancing the real purpose of PDS (Public Distribution System)
Solving a "Real Life Problem" 👍

[@ashokdas1459]

Thanks for conducting a positive and optimistic study for improving the PDS of our country