Government’s food subsidy bill is expected to swell to around Rs 81,000 crore in the current financial year, up from the Budget estimate of around Rs 68,000 crore for 2010-11 because of higher cost of procurement of wheat and rice and increased allocations to below poverty line and above poverty line families in the current financial year, official sources said. The 19% estimated increase in food subsidy also includes those part...

In a packed special court that hears consumer complaints, Hansraj Sharma nervously shuffled through a pile of papers that told the story of his decade-long battle against a car dealer and a bank. District and state-level consumer courts twice sided with Sharma, awarding him $800 for a shady loan scheme. But the defendants repeatedly appealed. Now, after 58 court appearances, his case still drags on. "They keep asking for adjournment on some...

NRHM needs to revitalise systems, monitor their functional performance and investigate their impact on the indices of health. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was launched in 2005 to bring about a dramatic improvement in the health system and health status of people in rural India. It seeks to provide universal access to health care, which is affordable, equitable, and of good quality. It aims at making architectural corrections to basic...

State governments as well as Central agencies have opposed a proposal to use money from the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) for building community centres under the Union government’s flagship rural jobs guarantee programme. Officials said managing accounts for such a diversion would be difficult and could lead to the misuse of funds. A meeting of state government representatives and district collectors, meant to revise MPLADS guidelines to make...

The Chhattisgarh model offers some key lessons on how to make the public distribution system deliverProbably the only thing extraordinary about Manglu is that he is the perfect example of an ordinary tribal. The 60-year-old belongs to the Pahadi Korba tribe and lives in Govindpur village of Sarguja district of Chhattisgarh. He best represents what modern India calls a below poverty line (BPL) beneficiary of various government schemes. Manglu earns...