-PTI/ Business Standard The lowering of estimates has been attributed to "early summer" The government has revised downwards the estimate for wheat production by 5.7 per cent to 105 million tonnes in the 2021-22 crop year ending June from the earlier projection of 111.32 million tonnes, as the crop productivity has been affected due to the early onset of summer. Addressing a press conference, Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey said the agriculture ministry has...

-Financial Express Dataset and methodological weaknesses cast doubt on recent poverty estimates that claim drastic reduction Bhalla, Bhasin and Virmani in a working paper (IMF), claimed India’s poverty, per a $1.9 per person per day poverty line (at PPP), was 0.9% of the population in 2020. Thanks to government transfer of free rations of 5 kg per person month, it fell to 0.8% (from 0.9% in 2019). Roy and de Velt, for...

-The Hindu A substantial part of the amount allocated does not reach the targeted groups because of a clause in the Act Bengaluru: Since 2014, Karnataka has spent an impressive Rs.1.84 lakh crore on the welfare and development of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribe (STs), who jointly constitute 24.1% of the State’s population. Yet, government data reveals that the communities are lagging behind the State averages in several parameters. While...

A recently released study, which has been done by Dalberg in collaboration with Kantar, and with support from the Omidyar Network India, brings to light both the supply and demand-side perspectives on the 'One Nation One Ration Card' (ONORC) scheme. Titled 'Fulfilling the promise of One Nation One Ration Card: A frontline perspective from 5 Indian states', the survey for the study was conducted in five states i.e., Andhra Pradesh,...

-Financial Express Crop loss, lower procurement to deplete FCI stocks; local supplies may suffice for PDS, free-ration schemes At Punjab’s Rajpura mandi, private traders are busy buying the wheat crop brought in by farmers at marginally above the minimum support price (MSP). Traders have been super-active in the mandi, one of the largest centres of wheat trade in the country, and their daily purchases often exceed the official procurement by the state-run...