The public distribution system (PDS) , one of the India's oldest and most far-reaching public safety net schemes , has perhaps been the least efficient of the country's anti-poverty programmes. A World Bank study of the working of anti-poverty programmes in India shows that to reach one rupee by way of the benefit to the poor, the government had to spend Rs 7 on PDS . As many as 45 per cent of the world's poor live in India.