-The Indian Express The Centre is pushing and many states are implementing Direct Benefit Transfers – and encountering little political opposition The entire focus on ushering in a direct benefit transfer (DBT) regime for delivering subsidies to the targeted populations has so far centered around cooking gas, and to some extent, on isolated pilot experiments with food subsidy. Agriculture subsidies, especially on inputs other than fertilisers, have largely escaped attention in...

-Livemint.com According to a background note prepared by the agriculture ministry, less than a fifth of targeted farmers have received soil health cards New Delhi: The government’s flagship scheme to correct the imbalance in fertiliser use and reduce costs of cultivation by providing all farmers with a soil health card is moving at a slow pace as states drag their feet. According to a background note prepared by the agriculture ministry and...

-The Indian Express The Rajasthan government has said the state’s record has been exemplary in making the transition from the older ration card-based system to using Aadhaar. Jaipur: Food security activists and economists have expressed concern at the exclusion of thousands of PDS beneficiaries in Rajasthan owing to glitches in the Aadhaar enabled electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) device. The Aadhaar enabled ePoS is dealing a double blow to the state’s public distribution...

-The Times of India RANCHI: Charo Oraon, 66 of Hurhuru village under Ratu block of Ranchi district has not been able to procure ration from the public distribution shop since June 2016-the reason-earlier he was not enrolled with the unique identification authority (Aadhar) and it was made mandatory by the state government to have Aadhar number for procuring ration. Off late he got his Aadhar registration by August but still is denied...

-Business Standard Fingerprint failure reports of existing Aadhaar-linked PDS cases not revealed The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has decided to complete the linking the bank accounts to Aadhaar numbers of all the beneficiaries of large social schemes, including the National Food Security Act, by March 2017. Once done, the delivery of these schemes would be based on biometric authentication linked to Aadhaar or direct cash transfers to linked bank accounts of...