Fulfilling the promise of ONORC

Inform beneficiaries about the availability of portability through their preferred channels: PDS dealers and news media.

Support general efforts with focused awareness campaigns for high-priority groups, such as migrant construction workers and marginalized women.

An estimated 880, 000 households expressed a desire to use portability but did not know they could access it. Raising awareness could unlock benefits for them.

In addition: clearly inform PDS dealers about the possibility of inter-state portability.

Improve connectivity for FPS
Upgrade technology in FPS to ensure better connectivity. E.g., ensure that all ePoS devices are 4G-enabled or extend high-speed connectivity to FPS.

This could help up to 210,000 households per month who experience transaction failures due to poor connectivity when attempting to collect rations under portability. It could support 1.3 million households per month that experience poor connectivity under PDS in general.


Implement exception handling for portability transactions when biometric authentication doesn’t work
State governments could consider developing and notifying clear rules for providing rations to portability customers when poor connectivity or authentication errors lead to failed attempts to collect rations. The Union government could provide support by developing model rules.

Once the rules are notified, raise awareness of PDS dealers and beneficiaries to ensure that all parties know how exception handling works.

This could help up to 240,000 households per month who could not access their rations at all using portability. It could support 650,000 households per month that could not get their food at all when availing rations under PDS overall.


Ensure that ration cards are issued, updated and seeded, especially for vulnerable groups
Close the remaining seeding gap through seeding camps and targeted seeding drives at FPS, focused on districts with the largest gaps.

Simplify procedures to update or correct ration cards.

Prioritize issuing ration cards for vulnerable women; simplify procedures and reduce the documentation burden for them.

Allow flexible stock requisiton for PDS dealers
Implement a system to let PDS dealers requisition additional stocks when they run low, so that they can meet fluctuating demand. Andhra Pradesh has implemented such a model, which can offer learnings for other states.

Improve demand planning by using data analytics to detect patterns and shifts in portability uptake and to predict demand more accurately. This could help better manage procurement, allocation, storage, and distribution of rations.

Together, these measures could improve availability of rations and reduce PDS dealers’ fear of stockouts, which is currently an important deterrent to serving portability customers.