chandigarh a study conducted in three districts of punjab bathinda sangrur and faridkot has concluded that the state support to the poor and vulnerable during the covid19 was inadequate and ridden by delays and insufficient ration with leakagesthe research carried out by assistant professor baldev singh shergill of punjabi university guru kashi campus at talwandi sabo found that the state did not provide ration during the first month of lockdown whereas the main objective of the public distribution system pds had been to provide ration during scarcity control private trade maintain stable prices and improve the wellbeing of the poor by provision of basic food and other essential commodities at reasonable pricesthe study conducted as part of the policy series by the punjabi universitys centre for development economics and innovation studies highlighted that the poor and vulnerable section of society had faced huge suffering in terms of food shelter and clothing and public social services comprising safe drinking water health and education during the early days of the pandemic whereas it says that there is no dearth of food availability in the context of buffer stocks at the national level but it was a case of distributional injustice because of which the poor died due to lack of food policy change requiredkeeping in mind the basic human needs of the marginalised and vulnerable sections of the society the study finds that the prevailing economic development processes are inadequate to fulfil such needs in an emergency situation there is a need to develop a local food management system which particularly focuses on storage facilities at the block level in the state under local control in the public distribution system during the crisis the local public distribution system should be universalised a striking feature of the functioning of pds is the diversity across states with kerala having the most effective and extensive system both in terms of coverage or participation and quantity of food grain distributed says the study