Quite opposite to the top-down model of budgeting, the newly elected Aam Aadmi Party-led Government in Delhi has decided to go for a 'citizen-centric' budget planning at 'mohalla'-level for the fiscal year 2015-16. Drawing lessons from the success stories of participatory budgeting conducted at municipal-level in cities like Porto Alegre (Brazil), the AAP-led Delhi Government has decided to launch this form of decentralized budgeting on a pilot basis in a...
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Farmer deaths choking exchequer, UP eyes insurance firms to ease ‘burden’ -Mohd Faisal Fareed
-The Indian Express Lucknow: Having spent over Rs 1,100 crore from the state exchequer in the last two years to pay compensation to the kin of farmers who have committed suicide, the state government has now decided to rope in private insurance companies to streamline the scheme and share the burden. Till now, the state revenue department was paying Rs 5 lakh to the kin of each farmer who died of unnatural...
More »Key reform moves on the back burner -Puja Mehra
-The Hindu Measures on urea, LPG, kerosene to go The Modi government is putting on hold its plans for some key economic reforms Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced in his maiden Budget last July. These include decontrol of urea prices, fewer subsidised cylinders a year and withdrawal of kerosene from the public distribution system (PDS). Fertilizer Minister Ananth Kumar told The Hindu that the administered price controls for urea would stay. "We...
More »Five Important Questions On Food Security -Lola Nayar
-Outlook A parsing of the recent expert report on food security reveals that most of its solutions do not meet the greater public good. The BJP's Election Manifesto had stated "that ‘universal food security' is integral to national security. BJP will take steps to ensure that the benefits of the scheme reach the common man and that the right to food does not remain an act on paper or a political...
More »Reject Shanta Kumar panel’s proposal to cut food security coverage, say social activists
-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: Flaying the Shanta Kumar panel's recommendations to reduce coverage of subsidised foodgrains from 67 per cent of the population to 40 per cent, food rights activists have urged the Modi government to reject the report, as it would mean going back on the BJP's election promises. The panel, headed by BJP MP Shanta Kumar, was constituted to recommend the restructuring the Food Corporation of India....
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