Increase in offtake under various public distribution schemes. Supply of wheat and rice will have to be doubled if the proposed National Food Security Act for targeted beneficiaries is implemented with the current delivery mechanism, in which leakages are too high, the Economic Survey for 2010-11 has said. “Once we give a legal guarantee to people about the food that they are to receive, if we try to deliver on this promise...

The Economic Survey has been silent on the proposed National Food Security Bill and the projections of foodgrains needed to provide food security to citizens. The chapter on Agriculture and Food Management talks of supply-side constraints, the need to feed a growing population, the procurement and off take of foodgrains, buffer stocks of foodgrains, food subsidy, the targeted public distribution system (TPDS), and the central issue price (CIP) of foodgrains, but...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the government is trying to introduce the proposed National Food Security Bill that seeks to provide a legal guarantee for cheaper foodgrains to the poor, in the Budget session of Parliament. "...we hope to bring to this session of Parliament the National Food Security Bill, which would give the people the right to food as the constitutional right," Singh told Rajya Sabha while replying...

By stubbornly overruling the National Advisory Council, the government risks defeating its purpose as a body that speaks for the poor and the disadvantaged. HAS the Manmohan Singh government begun to regard the National Advisory Council (NAC) as an adversary who should be undermined? Going by their exchanges on key issues such as food security, wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), and the implementation of the Scheduled Tribes...

The country’s food subsidy bill is expected to jump by 27 per cent to Rs 74,231 crore in the 2010—11 fiscal, the Lok Sabha was told today. This is due to a rise in support price and higher procurement and distribution of foodgrains via ratio shops. Last year, the government’s food subsidy bill stood at Rs 58,242.45 crore. “The amount allocated for food subsidy during 2010—11 is Rs 59,354.56 crore...Based on the actual...