Assumptions Validation and Government Permissions Process for AI and Blockchain based Digital Platform for Offering Public Distribution System Services through General Trade Outlets in India
Public distribution System in India
More than 800 million people are beneficiaries of the Public Distribution System (PDS) in India. This system is a welfare program through which the government distributes subsidized goods to the most vulnerable in society via Fair Price Shops (FPS). The goods include wheat, rice, and kerosene, with the system constituting a food security net for hundreds of millions of households. With COVID-19 affecting livelihoods of many beneficiaries, the Indian government has rightly prioritized PDS to offset some of the economic challenges that the beneficiaries are enduring.
The Indian central government and various state governments have, in the last few years been proactively working on implementing new technologies to improve the PDS and FPS system. The latest initiative includes the One-Nation-One-Card program which some state governments have implemented. This scheme enables beneficiaries to receive the benefits from any FPS outlet in the participating states.
Frontier Technologies Livestreaming (FTL) Program for Public distribution System in India
We, AsterQuanta have joined the Frontier Technologies Livestreaming (FTL) Program to launch a pilot which will test whether Artificial Intelligence (A.I) and blockchain can be adopted by the PDS system, for enhanced service delivery. A.I. technology would facilitate using facial recognition of the beneficiary to check against their I.D. card, while blockchain would increase transparency and accountability along the supply chain. A key point of the pilot is that general shops will have the possibility to participate as distribution centers, which is normally only permitted to authorized Fair Price Shops. If we are able to validate the idea during the pilot, these modifications should: reduce waiting hours to collect the goods, increase the quality of the goods, increase overall transparency of the system, and, ultimately, improve food security for the beneficiaries.
Objectives of the Pilot
Through frontier technology platforms, the following solutions are intended to be studied for feasibility, developed, implemented and evaluated.
▪ A single window solution for decentralizing public distribution services, by leveraging the large number of general trade (Kirana) outlets in India. This would help in reducing waiting times and providing easier access to the benefits, closer to home.
▪ A networked solution that facilitates unconstrained rationing of a greater variety of essentials to the public at large, through the general trade outlets. This would help in increasing the basket of products that can be availed by the beneficiaries.
▪ A secure solution that enables alternate forms of currency such as identity [Aadhar card, face & gesture recognition as the currency] for the public to obtain the essentials. This would help in benefits delivery when the beneficiary is running short on cash.
▪ A closed-loop monitorable solution that qualifies the authenticity of transactions across the span of the supply, distribution & consumption chain. This would help in leakage reduction and more efficient supply of benefits to the beneficiaries
▪ A predictive solution that triggers just-in-time [JIT] supplies to the local outlets by connecting the multiple stakeholders of the ecosystem. This would help in enhanced supply chain mechanisms for real time stocking.
Sprint One: Assumption(s) Validation and Government Permissions
The first sprint is aiming to test the pilot’s most critical assumptions in five Gram Panchayats in Karnataka state. It is focusing on gathering data from general shopkeepers and the beneficiaries of the ration system in order to better understand the problem and whether they would be open to our solution. We are tapping into the existing Common Service Centres (CSC) and Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE) network in India in order to undertake this research. At the same time, the team is also working to get the necessary government permissions and starting to build the tech solution.
Common Service Centres (CSC) scheme is one of the mission mode projects under the Digital India Programme. CSCs are the access points for delivery of essential public utility services, social welfare schemes, healthcare, financial, education and agriculture services, apart from host of B2C services to citizens in rural and remote areas of the country. It is a pan-India network catering to regional, geographic, linguistic and cultural diversity of the country, thus enabling the Government’s mandate of a socially, financially and digitally inclusive society.
The key stakeholder of the CSC scheme is the Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE), as the CSC operators are known. A network of 270,000 VLEs, of which 163,000 are in Gram Panchayats, are actively providing various online public utility and financial services to citizens, quality healthcare, apart from boosting entrepreneurship and employment in villages and smaller towns across the country. The VLE, with his/her strong entrepreneurial capability, sustains the CSC scheme. A good VLE not only has strong entrepreneurial traits and social commitment, apart from financial stability, he/she commands credibility and respect in the community. *https://csc.gov.in/vle#
Government Permissions
As the project warrants access to government run public distribution services, we required permission from the state government to run the pilot. We had planned to run the pilot in a district called Chikkaballapura in the state of Karnataka. And for running this pilot, we had to get the permission from the government.
We designed a process for obtaining the necessary permissions. We also believe that this can evolve into a more generic process for getting governmental permissions in general, anywhere in the world, with some variations as per the local requirements. This medium post talks about the generic process for getting governmental permissions
Generic Process for governmental permissions
Our methodology of getting the permission primarily covered the following process steps.
a) Objective of the POA — Define a high level objective for the plan of action. What is it that we need to achieve for all the work and effort that is being put into?
b) Plans — Define individual sub-plans for achieving the objective.
c) Actions — Define specific actions (use as many verbs as possible) in every sub-plan.
d) Results — Capture and Record responses for every associated action
e) Learnings — Capture and Record learnings for every associated action-result pair.
f) Next steps/Improvement items — Based on the current status, estimate the difference or distance between the objective and the current status.
The overall result or the current status is in general an aggregation of multiple responses of the different actions that have been pursued as part of the plan to achieve the desired objective.
Learnings
Objective:
Get a letter of approval from the relevant government authorities in the state of Karnataka to kick start the pilot. We spoke to multiple people in the government (similar to cold calling) and researched to zero on who the relevant government authorities were.
Plans, Actions and Responses:
Plans & Actions for Establishing Credibility — We needed to establish credibility before approaching the relevant government authorities. To establish an honorable credibility, we planned to approach the UK High commission to send a letter to the relevant government authorities in the state government introducing the pilot, the context and the relevant details.
Since this is a UK Foreign & Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) funded project, the local FCDO team in India provided an amazing help in getting the letter drafted and signed by the Deputy High Commissioner of the UK Embassy in the state of Karnataka.
a. For this objective, we were able to garner the help of an acquaintance well versed in the government workings. This acquaintance guided in drafting the letter, in a government format and parlance.
b. Subsequently this draft letter was sent to the local FCDO personnel for them to review the draft, make amendments and send it to the UK High Commission for subsequent action.
c. AQ’s project manager did primary research on who the letter from the UK High Commission has to be addressed to in the Karnataka state government. A total of 7 departments were identified to be CC’ed in the letter.
d. An email, attached with the official letter was sent to the Food & Civil Supplies (FCS) ministry, Additional Chief Secretary, Food & Civil Supplies, all the departments, district administration.
Plans & Actions for Mobilizing Partners — AQ team with its partner Sampoorna Swaraj Foundation (SSF) planned to approach the relevant district officials for introducing the pilot to them and getting them onboard. This was critical as the district officials are the personnel who would be directly involved in the field level execution of the pilot.
a. We were granted an appointment to meet and present to the district collector and other senior administrative officials of the local district.
b. The senior administrative team of the local district were kind enough to spend nearly 45 minutes in understanding the objectives of the pilot and what we intend to do. They were very dynamic and tech savvy, which helped us.
c. With a verbal interest given, the district administration subsequently wrote a letter to the state government senior authorities asking for guidance and the next steps. Officials at the district level need to get permissions from the state government to initiate anything at the ground level.
d. During the same visit, we met with the contract officials who handle VLE’s and related operations in the local district. They were ready to get VLE’s hired when we were ready.
Plans & Actions for Getting Buy-In from the Government– In parallel, AQ team planned to approach the highest levels of administration in the state government for formal grant of approval. This was critical as the district officials will not move an inch if there are no orders from the highest government authorities.
a. After the letter from the district administration was written to the state government senior authorities, we approached the state government senior authorities to initiate the approval process from the state government side.
b. The state government senior authorities were kind enough to grant a meeting for presenting the pilot and objectives to them.
c. Interestingly, these (very) senior officials in the bureaucracy, spent nearly an hour in understanding the whole pilot and were actively asking questions about the same. Questions included on the way we would handle implementation challenges relating to VLE proxy authentication, misuse of the picked ration, complaint handling and accountability.
d. After the meeting, we were informed that a case file would be opened and we would be intimated about the next steps.
e. Nearly after 2 weeks, we were informed that the file has been sent to the relevant Minister for the final approval.
f. This is a tricky state to be in as sometimes when files go to the political chambers, with due processes in place, can take months to get approval.
g. AQ PM team was able to research and get the contact information of the minister’s personal secretary‘s office.
h. Diligently the AQ PM team followed up with the minister’s personal secretary‘s office, almost on a daily basis.
i. After 3 weeks, AQ team was asked to meet the minister and discuss the project. An appointment was given for the same. We were asked why is the FCDO funding this program, why were we i.e. Asterquanta selected, objectives of the project and mechanisms for accountability for delivery.
j. After the meeting with the minister’s personal secretary, AQ team received intimation that the file has been approved.
Result:
The overall process and engagement led to active discussion with various levels of government officials and the bureaucracy. The slightly lengthy and intense approvals process gave us an opportunity to engage with officials, present in detail to various key stakeholders, and build support for the pilot.
Finally an approval Letter from the Government was issued for the first phase of the pilot. The first phase of the pilot is designed for assumption validation as explained earlier. We are pursuing a survey and a manual proxy distribution scheme in the first phase. In the manual proxy distribution, we will be signing up around 50 beneficiaries. Village level Entrepreneurs and other hired locals would be collecting the rations of the beneficiaries on the beneficiary’s behalf from their designated ration shops. The collected rations will be transported by the VLE’s and hired locals to neighbourhood kirana shops. Rations would be distributed to the beneficiaries through their neighbourhood kirana shops. All the transactions would be captured digitally, with the complete consent of the beneficiaries and the retailers. We will be collecting multiple data points during the course of POC/Pilot.
Learnings:
The above points highlight how actions and associated responses are intertwined. Sometimes it gets tedious to keep track of them. But, the trick is in book keeping these actions and responses and course correcting the actions, or persisting on the actions as required. And this book keeping is domain and subject specific.
We were able to comprehend the working styles and processes among the different levels of the bureaucracy and political system, building connections with people who show interest and very importantly the value of leaning on partners such as FCDO to back us up.
Next Steps:
Our focus is now on getting the operations up and running in the field (districts/gram panchayats) and deliver the technology & design for enabling proxy distribution
We are in the process of hiring and training VLE’s to kickstart our phase-1. We are creating mobile applications and training modules to enable the same. Our next blog will cover what it takes to get these field level personnel up and running, while ensuring our project /POC objectives are clearly met.
