Food-price inflation in India, Asia’s third-largest economy, may accelerate in the second half as farmers are paying 20 percent more to grow crops, according to the commission that helps set minimum farm-product prices. “The cost of production is going up very fast,” Ashok Gulati, chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “The labor cost has gone up dramatically in the past one year...

-The Indian Express   A day after the World Bank suggested that India should shrink its public distribution system (PDS) in favour of more cash transfers, Planning Commission Member (Agriculture) Abhijit Sen told select mediapersons it would be “stupid to abolish PDS”. A World Bank review of India’s social sector programmes titled “Social protection for a changing India”, commissioned by the Planning Commission, said though the PDS costs just 1 per cent...

-The Economic Times   A day after the Work Bank marked out deficiencies in the country's public distribution system (PDS) for foodgrain, a senior government official has said that restricting public distribution to below poverty line (BPL) households has been a failure in India. "The mess in the public distribution system has been created by the notion that it is only meant for the poor. All problems of the current system are...

India’s public distribution system has limited benefits due to huge leakage and wastage, World Bank said on Tuesday. It also recommended cash transfer as an alternative to provide subsidised food for the poor. “No country in the world has a well-functioning PDS system. India is no exception,” World Bank said in its report Social Protection for a changing India that was launched here Tuesday. “The public distribution system continues to absorb substantial...

-News One   Though India’s social sector spending is higher than many other developing countries, one of its flagship welfare programs — the public distribution system (PDS) — is fraught with leakages, a World Bank report said Wednesday. The PDS scheme, which consumes around one percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and covers upto 25 percent of the poor households, has had limited success, as only 41 percent of the...