-PTI NEW DELHI: The Food Ministry today rejected the Shanta Kumar committee's suggestion to cut the number of Beneficiaries under the food security law to 40 per cent of the population against the current 67 per cent. In its views on the Shanta Kumar's panel report on the FCI restructuring submitted to the Prime Minister's office (PMO) today, the Food Ministry has also disagreed on movement of foodgrains in containers in the...

-The Indian Express Benefits of Rs.33,000 crore will flow every year to the accounts of Beneficiaries The Union Budget 2015-16 proposes a 10-fold scaling up of direct benefit transfers (DBT) during the next financial year as a key expenditure control measure. The move is expected to lead to accurate targeting of Beneficiaries, de-duplication, reduction of fraud and elimination of waste and leakage in public programmes and schemes. The total number of Beneficiaries under 35...

-The Times of India NAGPUR: The state cabinet has given a go ahead for distribution of over 7540 solar powered agricultural pumps in the state. It will be on a pilot basis under a Central scheme. State cabinet on Tuesday decided to allocate Rs 22.25 crore for the project estimated to cost Rs 445 crore. The Union government has decided to give a big push to solar energy and fixed a target...

-Hindustan Times The government's fiscal management plan in the budget could see a roadmap on extending the controversial cash transfer schemes from just entitlements to subsidies, a move that could add fuel to the already surcharged atmosphere over the land acquisition bill. The finance ministry has issued instructions to bring all Central schemes having a financial component under the direct benefit transfer (DBT) from April, apparently to plug leakages and to keep...

Quite opposite to the top-down model of budgeting, the newly elected Aam Aadmi Party-led Government in Delhi has decided to go for a 'citizen-centric' budget planning at 'mohalla'-level for the fiscal year 2015-16. Drawing lessons from the success stories of participatory budgeting conducted at municipal-level in cities like Porto Alegre (Brazil), the AAP-led Delhi Government has decided to launch this form of decentralized budgeting on a pilot basis in a...