A parliamentary standing committee has recently asked the government to introduce the national food security Bill in the winter session of the Lok Sabha. A promise to implement a Bill of this kind was first mooted in President Pratibha Patil's inaugural speech last year when she mentioned the government's intention to provide each family below the poverty line (BPL) with 25 kg of foodgrains a month at Rs 3 per...

A team of officials of the Food and Supplies Department from Fatehabad had to beat a hasty retreat when they went to Nadel village near Jakhal for “door-to-door checking” of some records of foodgrains supplied through the public distribution system (PDS). Villagers, who suspected that the officials had come to the village to tamper with the records, snatched ration cards from them when they were allegedly making some entries in the...

Complaints of fungus-infested wheat being sold to the poor through the public distribution system (PDS) have come from Nadel village in this district. Villagers held a demonstration yesterday and demanded action against the depot-holder as well as the authorities responsible for supplying the rotten wheat. “The wheat being supplied to us through the PDS is not even worthy of feeding animals. Our children will be taken ill if they are made...

A huge quantity of rice, enough to feed thousands of hungry mouths, has been allowed to rot in drought-hit Jharkhand. Nearly 14,000 quintals of rice perished thanks to the negligence of the East Singhbhum district administration which did precious little to stop sacks of staple from being reduced to an inedible heap at a block office godown near Parsudih. Officials said scrapping of the Sampurn Gramin Rojgar Yojana (SGRY) in 2006 was...

The government will soon have to decide on the proposal of direct cash payments in lieu of food subsidy as a key committee of Parliament has asked the ministries concerned to decide quickly on the issue. This cash payment through smart cards is increasingly being seen as an option to prevent leakage in the public distribution system (PDS), and certain variants of the system are already being experimented with by...