Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday, 27 May 2026, announced that the Union Cabinet has approved ₹25,530 crore for SARTHAK-PDS Phase-2, a technology-driven overhaul of India's public food distribution network aimed at ensuring hundred-per-cent delivery of subsidised grain and welfare benefits to the poor.

Context

Posting on X, Shah stated that the Modi government is making pro-poor welfare schemes more transparent and accessible by equipping them with technology. He wrote: 'मोदी सरकार गरीब कल्याणकारी योजनाओं को टेक्नोलॉजी से लैस कर अधिक पारदर्शी और सुविधा संपन्न बना रही है' ('The Modi government is making welfare schemes for the poor more transparent and facility-rich by equipping them with technology').

The approved package introduces AI-enabled beneficiary registries, GPS tracking, and QR code tagging to ensure grain reaches eligible households without diversion. The announcement also includes financial support to states for rising logistics costs and an increase in the remuneration paid to fair price shop owners.

Policy Backdrop

India's Public Distribution System (PDS) operates under the National Food Security Act, 2013, which legally entitles up to 75 per cent of the rural population and 50 per cent of the urban population to highly subsidised wheat and rice. The system is executed through a nationwide network of licensed fair price shops that serve as the last-mile delivery point.

Efforts to plug leakages in the PDS date to the 2012 computerisation drive, followed by Aadhaar seeding of ration cards from the mid-2010s and the launch of One Nation One Ration Card portability in 2019, which allowed migrant workers to access their entitlements across state borders using biometric authentication. SARTHAK-PDS Phase-2 represents the next step in this two-decade-long digitisation arc, layering artificial intelligence and real-time logistics tracking onto the existing infrastructure.

Stakeholders and Impact

The three primary groups affected by the approval are eligible poor households, fair price shop dealers, and state food and civil supplies departments. For beneficiaries, the AI-enabled registry is designed to reduce exclusion errors — where genuine recipients are left out — while GPS and QR systems are meant to deter diversion of grain stocks before they reach the intended household.

Fair price shop owners, who have long flagged inadequate commissions as a viability concern, stand to benefit from the remuneration revision built into the package. State governments, which bear a significant share of PDS logistics expenses, will receive direct financial support to offset rising transport and storage costs — a provision that addresses a long-standing demand from several state administrations.

What's Next

Attention will now shift to state-wise rollout timelines and the operational framework for integrating AI-enabled registries with existing Aadhaar-linked ration card databases. The logistics support component will be closely watched to assess how funds are disbursed and whether they translate into measurable reductions in supply-chain losses.

Any revision to fair price shop commission rates in forthcoming state budget notifications will indicate how effectively the central outlay filters down to the dealer level. If implemented as announced, SARTHAK-PDS Phase-2 could set a template for technology-mediated welfare delivery that other large-scale central schemes may seek to replicate.