Rescaling the public distribution system in India: Mapping the uneven transition from spatialization to territorialization
Résumé
The Indian public distribution system operates like a huge machine transferring food grains
procured by the federal government from surplus regions at a guaranteed price towards deficit
areas where grains are sold at subsidized prices to poor households. The role of India’s regional
States has become more significant in recent years with ‘decentralized procurement’. However,
the national state has not become a minor actor, sandwiched between the globalization of food
flows and decentralization policies. A process of state spatial rescaling is indeed taking place,
although limited in scope and uneven across space. Before the 1990s, despite the uncontested
power of the central state, sizeable differentiation already existed between States or ‘food zones’,
in procurement as well as distribution. Recent rescaling of the policy has given States greater
scope for policy innovation, via a ‘territorialization’ process. Nevertheless, despite significant
rescaling to the subnational scale and the importance of ‘localization’ and ‘globalization’ trends,
the national scale maintains a prominent position in the overall policy framework.