The Delhi government has come under fire from civil society groups who claim that it is forcing Delhites to open accounts at post offices, clearing the way for cash transfers.

“Post department officials came to Kusumpur Pahari in Vasant Vihar and asked people to open account so that in near future money could be transfer into their account when it formally begins cash transfer system,”  claimed Sehba Farooqui of All India Democratic Women’s Association. She was speaking at the launch of a report which said replacing of public distribution system (PDS) by cash transfers has hardly any takers in the national capital. There were other speakers averred with Farooqui.

The report released on Thursday said, “91.4 percent of respondents prefer a reformed PDS over cash transfers in Delhi.” The survey findings were released by Rozi Roti Adhikar Abhiyan, a network of about thirty organisations working on issues related to food security.

The report added that only five percent of the respondents were in favour of replacing PDS with cash transfers while the rest had no opinion. “We need PDS because country is still suffering from hunger,” said Dipa Sinha, member of the right to food campaign. The findings are based on data collected from 4,005 households covering slums, resettlement colonies and homeless persons of different parts of Delhi.

The report said that cash transfer can’t become a substitute for PDS.  “Immediate steps must be taken to reform the PDS. This would include enhancing transparency, putting in place an effective grievance redressal system, ensuring doorstep delivery of food grains to the PDS shop, end-to-end computerisation, making fair price shops (FPS) viable,” the report pointed out.

The civil society groups blamed the Delhi government for not maintaining transparency. “In the age of flooding of information, government has not kept information on cash transfer in public domain. They have been not transparent in what they want to do,” said Anjali Bhardwaj of Satark Nagrik Sangathan.

The civil society groups also repudiated the government claim that the cash system would be linked to inflationary index. “Government will not raise monetary allocation on the basis of inflation. Have they increased the old age pension and allocation to integrated child development services (ICDS) schemes?” Bhardwaj asked.

Delhi government conducted a pilot survey (funded by UNDP) of 100 people in Raghuvir Nagar from January to June this year, roping in Self-employed women's association (SEWA) and India Development Foundation. The government has since deactivated the BPL card and is instead transferring cash to the beneficiaries. “Raghubir Nagar is not representative of the poorer localities of Delhi. The sample size is too small to form the basis of a policy change across the state,” the report noted.

Delhi government is acting on the recommendations made by a committee headed by Nandan Nilekani who has been asked to look into the methodology for replacing transfer of food grains through PDS with direct subsidies. The finance minister had indicated in this budget that fertiliser and kerosene subsidies too will be replaced by cash transfers.