-Statesman News Service The state food department will set up rice mills on the public-private partnership (PPP) model at 158 blocks of the state. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has initiated the process to avoid any further problem in rice procurement. The crop production was high this year, but due to dearth of rice mills the state food department initially faced problem in the procurement process. State food minister Jyotipriya Mullick said: "We...
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Food security, a fundamental responsibility of the state by Shikha Tyagi
No one will deny that the least a democratic government can do for its people in a civilised society is to ensure access to food at affordable prices. Ensuring food security is, therefore, a fundamental responsibility of the state. Public distribution system (PDS) is the instrument through which food grains are made available to targeted beneficiaries. Government's resolve to provide for food security is laudable. At the same time, it does...
More »Women demanding mobile phones but not toilets: Jairam Ramesh
-IANS Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday expressed concern that the government's Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) is being seen as a "token sanitation campaign" and rued that women were demanding mobile phones but not toilets. "Women demand mobile phones, they are not demanding toilets... Sanitation is the much more difficult issue," Ramesh said at the launch of Asia-Pacific Regional MDGs (Millenium Development Goals) Report 2011-12. Ramesh said women's self-help groups (SHGs) should...
More »Record grain output in 2011 facilitates Bill
-PTI The agriculture sector performed exceedingly well in 2011, with record grain production of over 240 million tonnes giving enough leeway for the government to lift a ban on exports of wheat and non-basmati rice and introduce the food security bill in Parliament. Farmers’ long-standing demand for crop loans at a 4% rate of interest was met during the year, although with a rider that the facility would be available to...
More »Coupon fiasco by Sakina Dhorajiwala and Aashish Gupta
In Bihar, the coupon system to distribute PDS grain fails to prevent corruption. AT the Jamaluddin gram panchayat in Patna district on January 26, 2007, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar launched an ambitious reform of the public distribution system (PDS) in Bihar: a coupon system. He claimed that it would “empower the poor and stop black-marketeering” and that it was “not a simple coupon but a powerful weapon in the hands...
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