-The Economic Times   An empowered group of ministers has in-principle agreed to give direct cash subsidy to the poor for Kerosene, as recommended by a task force headed by Nandan Nilekani, but it will launch the scheme only after consulting the state governments. "We cannot finalise any programme on Kerosene unless we discuss (it) with the state governments," oil minister Jaipal Reddy said. The EGoM on fuel, headed by finance minister Pranab...

DESPITE WHAT our reel-life heroes have shown us, perhaps it’s only possible to fight one villain at a time. Still, in his last few days on the job, Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde tried to battle two evils, with two reports that presented damning evidence of corruption in the BJP government. The first report, on illegal mining, had enough firepower to systematically dig holes in the state government. The second report,...

If Rajiv Gandhi were alive, he would have been delighted to see his view on leakages confirmed by a research study on the public distribution system [How Can Food Subsidies Work Better? Answers from India and the Philippines by Shikha Jha and Bharat Ramaswami (http://www.adb.org/documents/working-papers/2010/economics-wp221.pdf)]. The ADB study showed that the deserving poor in India received only 10 per cent of the benefits from the system. Nearly twice accrues to...

Directive comes after explosion of stoves, lamps using the Kerosene The Assam government has directed all Deputy Commissioners and Sub-Divisional Officers (Civil) to collect samples of blue-dyed Kerosene (meant for the Public Distribution System) from sensitive areas and depots and send them to the Forensic Laboratory in Guwahati for investigation. The directive came in the wake of explosion of stoves and lamps using the PDS Kerosene. A woman was killed and several others...

Proposes centralised PDS network, model PDS software for transparency. As the government works out the modalities for implementing direct transfer of subsidies on cooking gas, fertilisers and Kerosene, a task force headed by Nandan Nilekani has proposed a three-stage model for direct transfer of food subsidy. The rollout of direct transfer of food subsidy will be contingent on a modern and computerised public distribution system (PDS), for which Nilekani has suggested a...