Cash transfers are now suggested by many as a silver bullet for addressing the problems that plague India’s anti-poverty programmes. This article argues instead for evidence-based policy and informed public debate to clarify the place, prospects and problems of cash transfers in India. By drawing on key empirical findings from academic and grey literature across the world an attempt is made to draw attention to three aspects of cash transfers...

-PTI   Delhi may soon become the first city in the country to give cash instead of subsidized kerosene to BPL families, a move aimed at controlling widespread pilferage of the fuel. As per the proposal put forth by chief minister Sheila Dikshit, cash equivalent of the monthly kerosene subsidy will be directly transferred to the bank account of the female head of the family. A BPL family is likely to...

The current perception that cash transfers can replace public provision of basic goods and services and become a catch-all solution for poverty reduction is false. Where cash transfers have helped to reduce poverty, they have added to public provision, not replaced it. For crucial items like food, direct provision protects poor consumers from rising prices and is part of a broader strategy to ensure domestic supply. Problems like targeting errors...

The debate over the National Food Security Act has been reduced to a circus for political parties, NGOs and the National Advisory Council to perform verbal calisthenics. The discussion on who is entitled, who is not entitled and who should be entitled has gone on for over two years. The discourse is deteriorating into informed nit-picking. The time for debate is over; the time for decision is overdue. Let us get...

-The Economic Times   World Trade Organisation (WTO), the primary international body to help promote free trade has questioned India for providing subsidy on only indigenous ammonium sulphate and not on the imported Fertiliser. " WTO has asked India to furnish details as to why it has kept imported ammonium sulphate out of the ambit of Nutrient-Based Subsidy (NBS) policy," a senior Fertiliser Ministry told PTI. The Fertiliser Ministry is still examining the...