-The Indian Express Benefits of Rs.33,000 crore will flow every year to the accounts of beneficiaries The Union Budget 2015-16 proposes a 10-fold scaling up of direct benefit transfers (DBT) during the next financial year as a key expenditure control measure. The move is expected to lead to accurate targeting of beneficiaries, de-duplication, reduction of fraud and elimination of waste and leakage in public programmes and schemes. The total number of beneficiaries under 35...

-The Telegraph Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today charged the Centre with abolishing the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) in "clear violation" of the Act mandated by Parliament and said he was thinking of moving court against the decision. "I met Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on February 26 and specifically apprised him that the BRGF abolition was in contravention of the Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000. The special assistance under BRGF had...

-The Hindu Over 3 lakh tonnes of food grain, enough to feed 15 lakh families, is pilfered from ration shops annually Chennai: The quantum of PDS rice pilfered from Tamil Nadu is so high that it is what 15.68 lakh families are entitled to draw free of cost every month. A whopping 3.76 lakh tonnes of rice from the public distribution system goes missing annually. In financial terms, this means a loss of...

-Business Standard Environment ministry readies draft, which allows industry to fell trees in traditional forest areas without consent of gram sabhas After a lot of back and forth, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is ready with a notification to dilute tribal rights that would make it possible for most industries to chop down traditional forests without the consent of gram sabhas - a precondition that exists at the moment. After the Prime...

-The Times of India PM Narendra Modi in his speech in Parliament on Friday underlined how his government had decided to transfer a much larger share of resources to the states in line with Finance Commission recommendations, though it didn't have to. The finance minister in his budget speech repeatedly referred to the issue and the reduced "fiscal space" he had. The budget numbers reveal, however, that the states won't really...