The impending BPL Census exercise will not help the poor; on the contrary, it will further deny them a fair share in national resources. The BPL, or Below Poverty Line, Census 2011 for the rural areas will start in select States this month. In a country such as India with vast numbers of the poor, counting the poor often becomes an exercise in undercounting and dividing them, to suit the wholly...
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Food bill does a balancing act by Zia Haq and Prasad Nichenametla
The food ministry has prepared a new food security bill, reworking an earlier version and reconciling what had been “promised to the people” by the ruling Congress and the government’s fiscal constraints, MoS for agriculture KV Thomas has told HT. In August last year, the UPA government had pulled the plug on a previous draft, after it was found wanting by the Congress leadership. The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council, which oversees...
More »Govt to provide 5 million tonnes of foodgrain to APL families
-PTI The government plans to provide an additional 5 million tonnes of wheat and rice to above poverty line (APL) families at subsidised rates through ration shops, food minister KV Thomas said on Wednesday. The additional allocation, which would be over-and-above the normal quota under the Public Distribution System (PDS), would provide relief to the common man and also help the government in clearing godowns for storage of new crops. The government...
More »How much will cash transfer cost? by Himanshu
Last week, a group of 40 economists wrote an open letter to United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi arguing for cash transfer as a mode of delivery for the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA). The letter was carried in detail in several newspapers including Mint. The good thing is that there is now almost a consensus, at least among economists, that whatever be the mode of delivery of subsidy,...
More »Plea to adopt India’s rural employment guarantee scheme in South Africa
-PTI The head of South Africa’s powerful federation of trade unions has asked the government to consider replicating the model of India’s rural employment guarantee scheme MNERGA to address the huge unemployment problem in the country. Mr Zwelinzima Vavi, head of the powerful Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), believes that the model used in India could also work in South Africa. Speaking at a University of Johannesburg seminar around constitutional...
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