-Newsclick.in A finance ministry note has reportedly warned against too much spending on food and other subsidies. The scheme for providing 5 kg food grain to every individual in addition to the subsidised ration given to ration card holders may be finished after September. Called the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), it was started during the first lockdown in April-May 2020 and has been extended every six months. It is...

-PTI/ Business Standard The implementation of ONORC was initiated in August 2019 Assam has finally operationalised the ration card portability service and with this, the Centre's 'One Nation, One Ration Card' programme is implemented across the country, the food ministry said on Tuesday. Under the ONORC (One Nation, One Ration Card), beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA) can get their quota of subsidised foodgrains from any electronic point of...

-The Tribune Disruption in supplies due to Ukraine crisis may create food shortage, price distortions The war in Ukraine has become a war on the world’s poor. Russia and Ukraine, together, accounted for a quarter of the world’s wheat exports, one-sixth of global corn exports, nearly a third of barley and three-fourths of the export of sunflower oil. American sanctions on Russia mean it cannot sell its extra wheat in the global...

-TelanganaToday.com India’s food subsidy programmes have the capacity to respond to increased demand. Thoughtful adjustment would reap large-scale benefits. Covid-19 lockdowns aggravated food deprivation in India. The pandemic also revealed opportunities to expand the country’s food subsidy programmes. India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) offers subsidised foodgrains to eligible households. Public pressure during Covid-19 lockdowns led to a brief expansion in the number of beneficiaries in States such as Delhi. Though temporary, the expansion...

-PTI/ NDTV.com The working paper titled 'Pandemic, Poverty, and Inequality: Evidence from India' presents estimates of poverty and consumption inequality in India for each of the years 2004-5 through the pandemic year 2020-21. New Delhi: Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKAY), which provides free foodgrains to poor people, played a key role in keeping extreme poverty in India at the lowest level of 0.8 per cent during the pandemic-hit 2020, according to...