-Down to Earth Crisis in Chhattisgarh over implementation of food security law has crucial lessons for India's public distribution system The unprecedented surge in below-poverty-line (BPL) families in Chhattisgarh has a lesson for India's public distribution system (PDS). In its overdrive to implement its own food security law, the state has issued more Ration Cards than the total number of households. Political parties see it as a scandal, while it may...

-The Hindu Mangalore (Karnataka): The Department of Food and Civil Supplies is going ahead with its initiative to provide clean and safe cooking fuel to the poor. All districts have been told to push for providing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) connection to below the poverty line (BPL) ration card holders for free. Department Commissioner Harsh Gupta told The Hindu that field-level reports had shown that there was preference for LPG connection. But...

-The Hindu Hyderabad: The government of Telangana on Tuesday constituted a six-member committee for developing IT-based applications in the Civil Supplies Department and to work out methodology for issuance of new Ration Cards. The suggestions and the decisions of the committee will ensure that the IT-based requirements of the Civil Supplies Department are fully addressed to have an effective Public Distribution System (PDS) including methodology for issuance of new Ration Cards in...

-The Financial Express For all its targeting, fake Ration Cards abound. The GPS tracking of trucks carrying ration shop grain and the SMS alerts were supposed to be unique ways in which the Chhattisgarh government had resolved the issue of pilferage of ration shop foodgrains. Once people were informed that the rations had left the FCI godowns and when they reached their ration shops, there was less scope for pilferage. Hardly surprising...

-The Indian Express The Congress has now demanded a CBI inquiry into all Ration Cards made in Chhattisgarh in the past six-seven years. The BPL Ration Cards which were made in large numbers in Chhattisgarh before the 2013 assembly elections, as reported by The Indian Express on Friday, was an exact repetition of the developments ahead of the 2008 polls. If it was the Food Security Act in the 2013 elections, in...