I mean, is the stuff they get in utility stores of acceptable quality? Pakistan got rid of them at federal level (like PDS) in the 80s after the Americans or IMF complained I think but there was a lot of hoarding and backroom dealing going on. I think certain provinces still have them.
> stuff they get in utility stores of acceptable quality
Depends on which scheme/welfare program you're using.
The ones managed by the Federal/Central Government have better QAing and because of Aadhar it's much harder to do shenanigans and steal en masse. The brands provided are also available at your local Indian grocery store [0].
State Level schemes tend to be of varying quality. Some states (eg. Himachal, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Kerala) are able to maintain a high quality, but other states (eg. Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh) are unable to properly execute.
The Pakistani PDS collapsed because the hoarding and backroom dealing you mentioned. It fundamentally wasn't a bad program, it just lacked the institutional infrastructure needed to prevent corruption and lossage. The same thing happened in India until Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) like Aadhar was rolled out. With Aadhar, UPI, etc, it's easier to detect anomalous disbursements and thus root out corruption, as you have an audit trail.
Federal Schemes in India all require Aadhar/Biometric Validation. State Level Schemes don't require biometric validation, and as such can (and have) been abused.
