Ahmed Tritah, (2003) investigated the effect of food subsidies on food security and poverty in India using propensity score matching methods the author found that while the Public Distribution System (PDS) has a poor record on reaching the poor, conditional on having access to PDS, the subsidy is entirely consumed. Moreover it had been found that food subsidies going through the PDS exert a multiplier effect on quantity consumed. These findings point to are evaluation of the impact of PDS with respect to its main objective, which is food security. Similar method had been used to study the public distribution system in Kumbakonam, with data gathered from various sources. The present research has been aimed to analyze the feasibility of existing locations and suggest the alternate locations using operational research methods. All the ward wise coordinates were measured (x and y coordinates of the exact lat and long positions) along with the respective village population as weights were tabulated to compute ALTERN (a heuristic algorithm) to find the optimum location model for the PDS in the Town. Based on the existing and alternate locations of the maps it is useful to find the proposed locations based on the ALTERN algorithm and the model would provide optimum solutions. It is heuristic solution to the M-center location allocation problem. The algorithm alternates between locating centers and allocating demand points beginning with either, until assigned to the closest is at the minimum point of its set of demand points.
