-News One Though India’s social sector spending is higher than many other developing countries, one of its flagship welfare programs — the public distribution system (PDS) — is fraught with leakages, a World Bank report said Wednesday. The PDS scheme, which consumes around one percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and covers upto 25 percent of the poor households, has had limited success, as only 41 percent of the...
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AID POLICY: Getting the recipe right for US food aid
-Irin Changing the food the US government supplies as aid could deliver better results and still save money, a new study says. The review for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) by researchers at the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy has been welcomed by NGOs and US food aid experts, but the findings have also come in for some criticism. The two-year review considered if USAID...
More »Planning Commission asked to revise BPL norms
-The Hindu Court wants Centre to “distribute foodgrains on an individual basis” The Supreme Court on Saturday asked the Planning Commission to revise the per capita norms to determine below poverty line looking to the price index of May 2011 or any other subsequent dates. A Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma, at a special sitting to hear the case relating to streamlining of the public distribution system, pointed out...
More »More grain for BPL families in two weeks, Centre informs court by J Venkatesan
50 lakh tonnes of rice and wheat for all States/Union Territories at BPL prices Need to strike a balance between excess procurement and storage: Justice Bhandari ‘Whatever you procure, store it properly. The rest you can distribute to starving people' Responding to the concern expressed by the Supreme Court over malnutrition and starvation deaths, the Centre on Tuesday informed it of the decision to make an additional allocation of 50 lakh tonnes of...
More »PM’s panel suggests per person PDS allocation by Ravish Tiwari
The Prime Minister-appointed panel on Food and Public Distribution System (F&PDS) headed by Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia has suggested that the current system of distributing PDS foodgrain per household should be replaced with per capita allocation. According to National Sample Survey (NSS) data, lower income households have more members per family than higher income households, the panel has said in its draft report. Justifying its suggestion as a “progressive...
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