{{unreferenced, date=September 2013
Amar Dukan is an
Assamese term meaning 'Our Shop' to denote a notified Fair Price Shop in
Assam
Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...
which, besides providing the regular subsidized items under the
Public Distribution System
The Public Distribution System (PDS) is a food security system that was established by the Government of India under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution to distribute food and non-food items to India's poor at subsid ...
in
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
to the
ration card holders, also sells some other essential commodities at reasonable rates fixed by the state Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs Department to general consumers under an initiative of the
state government
A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonom ...
to strengthen the Public Distribution System (PDS). These specially converted Fair Price Shops started to function in many districts of the state in early 2011.
This initiative on the part of the state government was also an attempt to tame the spiraling prices of essential commodities and make them available to the common people at a significantly lower price compared to that in the open market. Onions, potatoes, mustard oil, refined oil, soya oil, dal, atta, suji, maida, soap, milk, toothpaste, toothbrushes and hair oil are some of the about 21 notified items which are kept by the Fair Price Shop-keeper in the Amar Dukan.
Not all the FPS in Assam are notified for functioning as Amar Dukan, nor does every Amar Dukan sell all the notified items.
Economy of Assam
Retailing in India