Answer:
The following are the advantages of the public distribution system:
1. It has helped in stabilizing food prices and making food available to consumers at affordable prices.
2. It has helped in avoiding hunger and famine by supplying food from surplus regions of the country to deficient regions.
3. The system of minimum support price and procurement has contributed to increase in food grain production.
The following are the disadvantages of the public distribution system;
1. Instances of hunger occur despite granaries being full. This points to certain lacunae or inefficiency in the system.
2. High level of buffer stocks often leads to wastage of food grains and deterioration in quality.
3. The storage of food grains inculcates high carrying costs on the government.
