Even as the prime minister protests his inability to distribute food free of cost to the poor, the overflowing food stocks seem set to lead to another year of blockbuster expenditure on the public distribution system. According to numbers from the department of food and public distribution system (PDS), the government spent Rs25,600 crore on food subsidies during just the first four months of the year. The amount — higher than the...

After insisting in Parliament and elsewhere that the amount of rotting food grain revealed by the Hindustan Times was “exaggerated”, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Sharad Pawar’s own ministry has proven him wrong. Nearly 40 days ago, this paper first reported how 50,000 tonnes of grain had decayed in Punjab alone and 17.8 million tonnes, or as much as France consumes in a month, was at risk from rotting. Pawar and his...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the Supreme Court should not go “into the realm of policymaking”. This was his response at an interaction with newspaper editors here to the recent order by the apex court that the government give food free to the poor. The court’s directive had caused the government some embarrassment but it had been uncertain whether the Centre would legally challenge it. While appearing to be unwilling to...

Agricultural experts today cast a wary eye on the steep rise in the cost of wheat prompted by a Russian export ban and the questions looming over harvests in other parts of the world because of drought or flooding with memories still fresh of food riots set off by spiking prices just two years ago, Food prices rose 5 per cent globally during August, according to the UN, spurred mostly by...

“The hungry must not be left out” The steering group of the Right to Food Campaign on Saturday expressed its apprehension about doing away with the distribution of subsidised foodgrains to Above Poverty line (APL) beneficiaries under the Public Distribution System (PDS), as suggested by the Supreme Court. While welcoming the court's order on rotting foodgrains, the campaign, that is pressing for universal PDS, has said that leaving out APL would mean...