Food subsidy allocation in the budget for 2012-13 is way short of what is required for the implementation of the proposed National Food Security Act, despite a categorical assurance by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee that the government would “fully provide” food subsidy to administer UPA's flagship legislation. In fact, the regular food subsidy requirement has been cut. While declaring that the government proposed to phase out subsidies in fertilizer and petroleum...

The Economic Survey has warned that more than half the population is dependent on a sector whose share in the economy is shrinking, leading to a bigger urban-rural divide and threatening national food security.  "Achieving minimum agricultural growth is a prerequisite for inclusive growth, reduction of poverty levels, development of the rural economy and enhancing of farm incomes," the Survey has said.  But it offers no path-breaking solutions on how to meet...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh can be devastatingly polite: when Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari, who has a commercial interest in agriculture, wrote him a doomsday letter on the dire state of agriculture under UPA rule, Dr. Singh took a month to reply, but when he did, it was to tell the BJP president in excruciating detail about the rise in agricultural production during his tenure in office, which compares...

-The Hindu   ‘The argument that too many people are coming forward to claim benefits is flawed' Aadhaar, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) project, cannot “fix” all that is wrong with the Public Distribution System, Abhijit Sen, member of the Planning Commission, said here on Saturday. The biometric identification and authentication project has been touted by the Planning Commission as a panacea for all issues that plague the Public Distribution System (PDS),...

-The Shillong Times   Taking cognizance over malpractices prevailing in the Public Distribution System (PDS) in the State, the Government is planning to computerize the whole system to check the malaise. To achieve this objective, the State Government has already submitted a Detailed Project Report (DPR) amounting to Rs 43 crore for computerization of the Public Distribution System (PDS) to the Central Government. “We had submitted the DPR through the National Informatics Centre (NIC)...