In a reformist move long recommended by various economists and panels, the government has set up a task force to create a way to directly transfer cash to the ultimate Beneficiaries of various subsidy schemes, which are, at best, messy and, at worst, ineffective. The task force will be headed by Nandan Nilekani, chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India. A pilot will be rolled out in the next four...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Total Matching Records found : 2296
Village head in Haryana kills RTI activist’s kin
The daughter-in-law of a Right to Information (RTI) activist who exposed a pension scam in Haryana was allegedly murdered by the village council head involved in the scam. Sonu was killed when she tried to rescue her father-in-law, Jagdish Sharma, after the village head, Dharambir Malik, crushed Sharma’s legs under the wheels of his car near Bhuna in Fatehabad district, around 50 km from here. A murder case has been registered against...
More »CAG finds flaw in PDS beneficiary list
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has found that the Food and Civil Supplies Department of the State neither conducted any survey for identification of Beneficiaries nor followed the survey conducted by the Panchayat and Rural Development Department in 1998-99, to select the Beneficiaries of the Below Poverty Line (BPL) for the Public Distribution System (PDS). The status as of September 2007, as per the BPL census of 2002,...
More »Getting smarter about welfare by Sreelatha Menon
One swipe of the smart card and hospital bills of up to Rs 30,000 can be paid under the Centrally sponsored Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY). This potential of the smart card, unlocked for over twenty million Beneficiaries of the scheme, is now set to empower Beneficiaries of subsidised food grains in Orissa to buy wheat and rice. The idea is to have a single smart card serve multiple purposes. The...
More »No Rs. 2-a-kg rice for affluent APL
The Naveen Patnaik Government has made a major course correction in its populist scheme. The rice Rs. 2-a-kg scheme would no longer include a privilege section - the above poverty line (APL) families in the backward KBK region. The privilege section enjoying the largesse included income tax payers, members of royal families, ministers, MPs, MLAs, government officials and big businessmen. Though belated, the decision will save about Rs. 34 crore to the...
More »
