-The Hindu A properly designed and implemented procurement law is long overdue. It can improve financial management, and bring large financial and governance benefits Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s 2015-16 budget speech signalled the government’s commitment to formally legalise India’s public procurement system as a part of its continuing reforms in public financial management. Following this, the Ministry of Finance is seeking suggestions to refine the Public Procurement Bill of 2012, introduced by...

-Down to Earth The Centre's decision to reduce Panchayati Raj Ministry's budget and transfer its schemes to states has left the ministry bewildered about its job and caught states unprepared for devolution of power IS IT Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initiative to devolve power to states and allow them to design their development programmes according to their priorities, or to make irrelevant a ministry that was created under the regime of the...

-The Indian Express New Delhi: The  Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday began its unique experiment of holding mohalla sabhas to decide the content of the State Budget, with three such meetings held in Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s Patparganj constituency. The AAP had earlier earmarked, on a pilot basis, 11 constituencies  for people’s participation in the budget. Rs 50 lakh was allotted for each mohalla, with citizen’s priorities being the framework...

-Economic and Political Weekly The states now have an opportunity to set their own priorities in the social sector. In the constitutional scheme of things, it is the states rather than the centre which bear the larger responsibility for social sector spending. Indeed, the states already account for as much as 80% of total outlays in the area. But central government intervention in the form of establishment of and funding for certain...

-Economic and Political Weekly Direct benefi t transfers in the form of cash cannot replace the supply of food through the public distribution system. Though it is claimed otherwise, DBT does not address the problems of identifying the poor ("targeting") and DBT in place of the PDS will expose the vulnerable to additional price fluctuation. Further, if the PDS is dismantled, there will also be no need or incentive for procurement...