THE government seems to be considering a new system to replace the present system of targeted public distribution system (TPDS) with food coupons or direct cash transfer. The ills that plague the present TPDS are well-known and well-documented. The two national surveys, one by Programme Evaluation Organisation of the Planning Commission and the other by ORG-Marg, both at the instance of the Union government, have identified the major problem areas...
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‘Calculate eligible BPL families for Rs. 3 a kg food grains' by Gargi Parsai
The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on Friday urged the Planning Commission to work out the number of Below Poverty Line (BPL) households and the households' size that would be eligible for Rs. 3 per kg discounted food grains under the proposed National Food Security Bill. The Tendulkar Committee report had placed the BPL percentage at 37.2 which, at 2005 population and household size, works out to about 7.14 crore households...
More »A Bellyful Of Proposals by Bhavdeep Kang
THE FLAGSHIP scheme of UPA II, the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA), has become a policymaker’s nightmare. If suggestions by the Finance Ministry (reportedly at the instance of Congress President Sonia Gandhi) and the state governments are incorporated, the yearly food grain requirement would be close to 80 million tonnes. But considering food grain procurement in an average year is 40 to 41 million tonnes — half the amount...
More »IPL? Let’s get real by Samar Halarnkar
So, Shashi Tharoor has gone. Lalit Modi may follow. Or not. Cricket’s great jamboree may be cleaned up. Or not. Does it matter so much? The Indian Premier League (IPL) brouhaha could not have come at a worse time. India was, finally, if reluctantly, starting to focus on long-festering-but-urgent issues that prevent this country from being a just, equitable democracy. As Tharoor and Modi self-destructed, the circus around them diverted all...
More »Lessons from BPL Censuses by VK Ramachandran, Y Usami and Biplab Sarkar
To perpetuate a system that assigns a household to a single BPL/APL category in circumstances in which poverty is multi-dimensional is not only bad economics, but unconscionable as well. The pilot surveys for the next Census of BPL (below-poverty-line) households are due to begin. Discussions are now on to finalise the methodology for the survey, and as the BPL Census is a matter of the subsistence and survival of hundreds...
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