New Delhi, July 23 -- A parliamentary standing committee on consumer affairs, food and public distribution has asked the Centre to accelerate the rollout of the Rs.349.9-crore Scheme for Modernization and Reforms through Technology in Public Distribution System (SMART-PDS) programme. It said the next phase of reforms should focus on building a unified, real-time digital platform capable of improving beneficiary targeting, strengthening supply-chain monitoring and reducing leakages in India's food subsidy programme, which has nearly 800 million beneficiaries.

The recommendations come after the Centre completed the first phase of digitisation of the public distribution system (PDS). Under the initiative, around 205 million ration cards cov...