ABSTRACT
The most significant modification of the Public Distribution System (PDS) in the post reform period was the withdrawal of Universal PDS and the introduction of Targeted PDS (TPDS) policy in 1997, which sought to target the lower income groups in providing food security. Even with the introduction of NFSA and cash transfers in the later period, the policy of targeting has persisted in different forms. In order to assess the targeting policy, this chapter makes a comparison of the two types of policies in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal for three different periods, 1993–94 (when both states had a system of universal PDS) and after the implementation of TPDS, 2004–05 and 2009–10, as West Bengal implemented the TPDS and Tamil Nadu maintained the universal system. Various aspects of the policies like the participation of households, estimation of targeting errors and their effectiveness as a measure of food security are evaluated. The analysis revealed that the targeting policy aftermath of the economic reforms hardly succeeded in accomplishing its envisaged mission of improving the welfare of the most vulnerable section.
