Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Food subsidy bill shoots up by a whopping of Rs 34,738 cr by Prabha Jagannathan

Food subsidy bill shoots up by a whopping of Rs 34,738 cr by Prabha Jagannathan

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Jul 26, 2011   modified Modified on Jul 26, 2011
The Centre's food subsidy bill, incurred mainly on account of reimbursemnet of economic costs to theFood Corporation of India for grain procurement, holding and transportation, has shot up by a whopping Rs 34,738 crore compared to the budgetary allocation for 2011-12. This is mainly due to government buys of a record foodgrain crop in the 2010-11 agricultural year (july-june).The original subsidy for the year was estimated at Rs 47,239.8 crore.

Correspondingly, the allocation for the decentralised procurement states has also gone up by Rs 489 crore to Rs 13,334 crore. The original allocation for DCP states was Rs 12,845 crore. That pushes up the total subsidy bill from Rs 60,084.8 crore to Rs 95,311 crore for the current year.

Ironically, the right to food bill, if it were implemented this fiscal, would have reduced the subsidy burden noticeably on the Centre by directly impacting on the holding costs for a substantial quantity of food grain. All the more so given the caution on the part of the government in allowing exports of wheat products and non basmati rice (this after four years of export ban at anMEP of $400/tonne) recently. However, the Act is now expected to come into force only by 2011-12.

An official statement issued here, explaining the additional expenditure by the FCI, said "The Corporation has to meet expenditure beyond the budget allocation, due to bonus on wheat, rise in paddy procurement price and additional allocation etc. All the additional requirements ofFCI are being met by the government." In addition to the 2010-11 procurements by the government, additional carryover stocks from the previous year are also lying with the FCI, leading to storage crunch and affecting the quality of grain besides the produce price for farmers in the open market.

The statement from the food ministry added "Against allocations, the government has (already) released Rs. 12,000 crore to FCI in the first week of April 2011, and Rs. 4,000 crore in the first week of July 2011. Due to pressing requirements of procuring operations, Rs. 7,635.84 crore was released recently on 21st July 2011 to FCI."

According to the government, in addition to record buys of foodgrain, what added to the huge spends for FCI was also the declaration of incentive bonus of Rs. 50 per quintal for wheat, additional allocations of foodgrains forAPL and BPL families and increase in MSP of paddy by Rs. 80 per quintal forKharif Marketing Season.

The FCI borrows normally borrows prior to the kharif and rabi marketing seasons from a consortium of banks led by theSBI for its procurement operations and is subsequently reimbursed by the government. . The interest rate was 10.85p a in 2008. For 2010-11, the interest was 11.25%. For excess grain over the buffer norm alone, the holding costs for 2010-11 worked out to Rs 6000 crore. That could have translated directly into savings had the right to food act been in force, offloading the grain to states early and reducing holding time and cost for grains noticeably.

The Economic Times, 25 July, 2011, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/food-susbidy-bill-shoots-up-by-a-whopping-of-rs-34738-cr/articleshow/9362335.cms


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close