The paper makes an attempt to profile, historically, the movements in a number of variables relating to the food economy of Bangladesh in general, and the public foodgrain distribution system (PFDS) in particular. The variables are per capita availability of rice and wheat, rationing offtake as a ratio to availability of rice and wheat, the relative roles of Statutory Rationing (SR) and Modified Rationing (MR) on the one hand, and of all other channels on the other in total offtake, rural and urban proneness of the effect of the PFDS, and finally the unit subsidy in rice and wheat distributed. It is found that, while the PFDS has markedly gained importance in the postliberation as distinct from preliberation period, per capita availability has virtually stagnated. The proportion of both SR and MR have tended to fall after the liberation, particularly rapidly for MR. PFDS expanded in 1970s in part because of the expansion of rationing effort for the civilian, military and security establishment, and in part because two mechanisms for augmenting targeted food supplies in rural areas have been introduced. One overall result has been that PFDS has been increasingly less geared toward urban beneficiaries in the 1970s and 1980s. The rural proneness of the system has betrayed a very modest tendency to improve.