A demand to reintroduce a universal Public Distribution System (PDS) in the country appears every now and then. Its proponents argue that universal access is necessary for ensuring food security, for better control on prices and for eliminating (at least partially) the evils of exclusion errors in the targeted PDS. The question is: what are the operational implications of access for all citizens to subsidised foodgrain? They are currently allocated as...

The official line is simple. Since we cannot afford to feed all the hungry, there must only be as many hungry as we can afford to feed. There was irony in the timing of the petrol price decontrol order. The decision, which also covered major hikes in diesel and kerosene prices, and affects hundreds of millions of people, came even as Manmohan Singh advised world leaders in Toronto on the need...

The government plans to expand the basket of subsidised food items supplied to the poor by adding edible oil, sugar and pulses to wheat and rice provided currently, as it looks to ensure complete nutrition to the deprived. The proposal is expected to be discussed at the July 24 meeting of National Development Council, a body of state chief ministers chaired by the Prime Minister. The idea was mooted by...

In April, India’s Planning Commission accepted recommendations put forth by the so-called Tendulkar Committee on a new poverty headcount for the country. Constituted by the Planning Commission under economist Suresh D Tendulkar, the committee, after four years and a new methodology, arrived at a new figure for the number of Indians living below the poverty line: 37.2 percent, ten points higher than the previous official figure. With the government’s subsequent...

A panel of experts that sets the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance administration’s social agenda is likely to reject a draft law to offer cash compensation to the poor, who do not receive their quota of subsidized foodgrain. Members of the National Advisory Council (NAC), which is led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, insisted during a Thursday meeting that the entitlement should be universal, instead of being restricted to families below the...