The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) on Thursday spared a power tariff hike for nearly 16 lakh non-metered agriculture consumers consuming up to 5 horsepower and 1.20 crore residential consumers of Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL) with a monthly consumption up to 300 units, for 2010-11. Taking note of the grievance of educational institutions, dispensaries and hospitals consuming a load up to 200kw,MERC has de-clubbed them from the commercial...

Minister of state for food and civil supplies Babu Lal Nagar seems to have landed in deeper trouble over alleged corruption in allotment of foodgrain under the public Distribution system (PDS). According to sources, the Centre had clearly restrained the food and civil supplies department from distributing wheat allotted under PDS in the form of aata (flour), maida (refined flour) or suji (semolina flour). The department admits this in para-2...

An Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is likely to revise the issue price of levy sugar for the public Distribution system (PDS). The group is going to meet on Thursday with a three-point agenda for discussion. The government had recently increased the price of levy sugar for mills, which is meant for PDS, to an average of Rs 17.57 per kg for the 2009-10 crop...

Inefficiency, the global financial meltdown and rising food prices have conspired to reverse progress made on poverty and hunger Head out of Delhi, across the fetid Yamuna river, with the tourist sites behind you and the northern Indian plains in front of you. Go past the new, luxury flats built for the Commonwealth Games, turn right and follow the lines of the new metro and then plunge left, avoiding the chaotic...

Nationwide discussions and intelligentsia offering solutions to clear the rot in the public Distribution system appears to have drawn a naught in Uttar Pradesh. In March, officials from the department of food and civil supplies had acknowledged `serious flaw' in the government policy, and said that the process of issuing ration cards in the state was `too liberal'. Six months on, not much has changed in the state. According to...