-The Hindu Shanta Kumar panel favoured a drastic cut in beneficiaries The Narendra Modi government is not in a hurry to accept the controversial recommendation of the Shanta Kumar panel to cut the public distribution system beneficiaries for subsidised foodgrains to 40 from 67 per cent under the National Food Security Act, highly placed government sources have indicated to The Hindu. With several crucial Assembly elections in the offing this and the next...

-Livemint.com Experts say the panel's suggestions on public distribution system overlooked reforms undertaken by states New Delhi: The high-level committee on restructuring of the Food Corporation of India (FCI), which suggested sweeping changes in the procurement and distribution of foodgrains, may have based its conclusions on inflated leakages in the public distribution system (PDS), experts say. The panel recommended that coverage under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) be reduced from 67%...

-The Indian Express New Delhi: Bihar, along with Chhattisgarh and Orissa, have recorded the highest improvement among all states in the operations of their public distribution system (PDS), measured by the extent of grain leakages taking place. Development economists Jean Dreze and Reetika Khera estimate that only 9.3 per cent of the foodgrains channeled through Chhattisgarh's PDS network failed to reach the intended consumers in 2011-12. This is a substantial reduction relative...

-Outlook A parsing of the recent expert report on food security reveals that most of its solutions do not meet the greater public good. The BJP's election manifesto had stated "that ‘universal food security' is integral to national security. BJP will take steps to ensure that the benefits of the scheme reach the common man and that the right to food does not remain an act on paper or a political...

-Livemint.com It is high time that India's foodgrain management is decentralized In the euphoria surrounding the enactment of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in 2013, its champions forgot to pay attention to a key ingredient for making it successful: the state of the food supply chain in India. As in much else, the existing setup was sufficient. From the procurement system run by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to the...