An analytical study of the relative consumption of tribals through pds in rural India

Distribution of subsidised food grains through the network of fair price shops is one of the oldest welfare measures of Government in India with perhaps the widest coverage. The Public Distribution System (PDS) has immense impact on the livelihood of the rural population in India, especially for disadvantaged groups of society. In this paper, an analysis of monthly per capita quantity consumption of rice and wheat through PDS has been done for the population belonging to scheduled tribes and general category in rural India. The changing pattern of quantity consumption through PDS over the period of last 20 years has also been discussed in the paper. An attempt has also been made to study the differences of quantity consumption between the two populations as a measure of relative consumption. For this study, the households in rural area have been divided into 10 decile classes based on their Monthly Per Capita Expenditure, and analysis of quantity consumption has been done for each decile class, separately, during the period 1993–1994, 1999–2000, 2004–2005, 2009–2010 and 2011–2012. Unit level data of different rounds of the large-scale consumer expenditure surveys conducted by National Sample Survey Organization, Government of India from 1993–1994 to 2011–2012 have been used in this study.