Short essay on A Scene at a Ration Depot for students (Free to read). A ration depot is an important component of the Public Distribution System (PDS).
The main purpose of having a net-work of ration depots throughout the country is to arrange a regular supply of essential items to the common man at fixed reasonable rates. This system incidentally also discourages hoarding by unscrupulous traders and prevents resultant shortages and artificial escalation of price rise.
A ration depot is generally bubbling with life. Long before the opening of the depot, the card-holders stand outside it in a long queue. Sometimes there are separate queues for ladies and gentlemen and for those who want eatables like cereals, pulses, sugar etc. and those who want kerosene oil.
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Generally, there are three or four workers at every ration depot. The first worker takes the card from the customer, enters it in a register, takes the payment and issues a slip indicating the quantity of the commodities to be supplied. The second worker receives the slip and supplies the correct quantity of the commodities. The remaining one or two workers look to it that the supplier does not run short of any commodity or attend to the complaint or problems of the customers. If the worker who supplies the commodities is seen running out of an item, a new sack etc. from the store nearby is made available to him immediately. Sometimes, there is a quarrel between two customers. But often it is settled amicably.
It does happen sometimes that a Depot- holder hides his stock of an item and wrongly declares it “out of stock”. Then he sells the stock in the black market. Some depot holders underweight under measure. It is imperative for the consumers to report against such unscrupulous depot holders, so that they may be brought to book.
In the case of certain commodities, the government sells them at subsidized rates to prevent price rise or scarcity in the open. The Public Distribution System has been very beneficial to the common man. Still it needs improvement, particularly at the level of ration depots.