A coalition of civil society activits has criticized the Union Budget 2023-24 for reducing government spending on the social sector by a massive amount. The economic crisis induced by the Covid-19 pandemic was borne disproportionately by those at the bottom of the pyramid and in this context spending on social protection schemes such as the Public Distribution System, anganwadis, pensions and MGNREGA is especially important. But the Government of India has...
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Budget Briefs: Food Subsidy in FY 2022-23 lower by 28%, 12.3 crore excluded - Jenny Susan John, Avani Kapur, Ria Kasliwal
Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research Budget 2023-24 will be unveiled on February 1. As part of laying the context this brief, prepared by the Accountability Initiative, examines the allocation and expenditure trends for India's food subsidy. At the start of the current Financial Year (FY) 2022-23, Government of India allocations for Food Subsidy stood at Rs. 2,06,831 crore, which was 28 percent lower than the previous year's Revised Estimates (REs)....
More »What free food rations hide: A rollback of social security in India -Jean Drèze
-Scroll.in The sugar-coated termination of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana calls for an urgent expansion of alternative social security measures. Much confusion surrounds the Modi government’s recent move to modify the foodgrain entitlements of National Food Security Act cardholders from January 1, 2023 onwards. The move actually has two steps, cleverly synchronised. The first step consists of waiving, for one year, the token payments that National Food Security Act, or NFSA, cardholders...
More »Road to a malnutrition-free India -Bhavani RV
-The Hindu It’s imperative that ‘good nutrition’ becomes everyone’s mantra if we are serious about addressing the challenge Malnutrition continues to be a major challenge in India 75 years after independence and we need concerted action around it. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) report on Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 puts the number of undernourished people in India in 2019-21 at 224.3 million, i.e., 16% of a...
More »Withdrawing PMGKAY a regressive step, cuts the foodgrain entitlement by half: Right to Food Campaign
-The Hindu On December 23, 2022, the Union government announced that it would discontinue the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) from January 1, 2023. Withdrawing the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), under which an extra 5 kg of free foodgrains was provided to every ration card holder in addition to the entitlement under the National Food Security Act, is a regressive step and will force poor families to...
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