Situation alarming: More than one-third population hit by drought The country is facing severe drought for the second consecutive year. Conservative estimates from official sources show that over a quarter of rural habitations are facing drinking water scarcity. Although both India Meteorological Department and Skymet have predicted a more than normal rainfall during June-September, 2016, the water storage available in 91 major reservoirs of the country has declined from 22 percent...
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From plate to plough: A barren field -Ashok Gulati & Shweta Saini
-The Indian Express NDA government’s plans for agriculture are still to bear fruit As the Modi government celebrates two years in office, any review of its functioning will be incomplete without examining its record on the farm front. In the two years (FY15 and FY16), while the economy grew at 7.2 per cent and 7.6 per cent respectively, agriculture and the allied sector grew at -0.2 per cent and 1.1 per cent....
More »Census pegs female-headed households at 13.2%, but it may be underestimation
There is a general perception that men are the primary breadwinners and, therefore, they are the ones responsible for fending for their families. However, recently released data from the population Census 2011 shows that around 3.3 crore households in the country are headed by women. In other words, overall there are 13.2 percent female-headed households (See Chart 1). The Census data shows that there are 59.4 lakh single member female-headed...
More »Centre asks states to scale up DBT scheme for food subsidy -Sandip Das
-The Financial Express In a bid to curb pilferage of foodgrains in the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), the Centre on Saturday asked the states to opt for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) under which the subsidy component is credited to bank accounts and allows the beneficiaries to buy foodgrains from the market. However, for implementing DBT, the states must complete digitisation of beneficiary list and seed bank account details for fund transfer....
More »Aadhaar helped plug Rs 27,000 crore leakage in FY16
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Usage of Aadhaar for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) has led to savings across several government Welfare schemes, including Rs 27,000 crore in PDS, LPG distribution and MNREGS. At a review meeting on the progress of DBT, PM Narednra Modi was informed that in 2015-16, Rs 61,000 crore was distributed to over 30 crore beneficiaries using DBT. The PMO said over 1.6 crore bogus ration cards have been...
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