-Business Standard The Union government has remained equivocal in public about the Shanta Kumar report and whether the National Democratic Alliance intends to follow up and change the National Food Security Act. But at least on one count it has moved fast to implement the report - converting the subsidised food supply into cash transfers under the Direct Benefits Transfer Scheme. The food ministry has written to the Union Territories to...
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Is the Govt doing away with PDS?
Following the recommendations of the Shanta Kumar Committee report on restructuring of the Food Corporation of India (FCI), there are signs that the Central Government is in a hurry to replace the Public Distribution System (PDS) with cash transfers. The Government's intention has been revealed in two official letters (one dated 10 February 2015 and another dated 11 February 2015) that were sent from the Joint Secretary at Department of...
More »Direct cash transfers will give spending boost to economy. Crisil explains how -Seetha
-FirstPost.com So we're all familiar with the argument that direct cash transfers (also known as direct benefit transfer or DBT) is a more efficient and cheaper way of delivering subsidies to the poor. Did you also know that this could also give a spending push to the economy? That's what a Crisil Insight report, Cascading cash, catalysing consumption, says, pointing out that an unconditional cash transfer will raise the discretionary spend of...
More »A new menu -Ajay Chhibber
-The Indian Express ONE of the late R.K. Laxman's best cartoons from the mid-1960's portrays a smiling food minister looking out of a window at a heavy monsoon downpour saying, "This year we can tell the Americans to go to hell." Fifty years ago, a good monsoon meant that that year, India was not dependent on food aid and wouldn't have to go hat in hand to the Americans for food...
More »Merge MGNREGA with DBT
-The Financial Express Given that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is now a decade old, and there have been repeated allegations of it being a breeding ground for corruption, a thorough review of it is called for. Though Nitin Gadkari's plan to limit the scheme to the poorest districts and to change the amount reserved for labour payments did not go down well when he was the...
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