-The Indian Express The finance minister plans to scrap the supply of subsidised kerosene through the public distribution system (PDS) and high time, too. To begin with, why has the kerosene subsidy needed reform for decades and yet reform never materialised? Kerosene obtained through the PDS, being cheaper, is used to adulterate diesel and petrol. Kerosene leakages in the PDS are estimated to be 40 per cent of total allocations. The diversion...
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India's rural employment programme is dying a death of funding cuts -Jayati Ghosh
-The Guardian After a decade of success, the landmark scheme is being starved of money by a central government seemingly intent on reining in rural wage growth Ten years ago this week, the Indian parliament unanimously passed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). It was a historic legislation based on two interlinked goals: ensuring livelihood security to rural residents by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment...
More »Arun Jaitley hints at more spending cuts ahead of Union Budget
-PTI Having already crossed the fiscal deficit target in November, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday hinted at more cuts in spending so as to contain it within limits for the current fiscal, saying he does not believe in living on borrowed money. "We're trying to rationalise expenditure as far as the government is concerned because we do not want the government to live on borrowed money indefinitely," he told a gathering...
More »Reforming FCI or cutting back food security? -Nitin Sethi
-Business Standard The Shanta Kumar Committee on restructuring FCI has suggested the reach of the National Food Security Act be curtailed to 40 per cent of the population The National Democratic Alliance government set up the high-level Shanta Kumar Committee to restructure and reform the state-owned Food Corporation of India. Instead, the panel ended up providing a road map to restructure the entire farming and food security policy of the government. In...
More »Hundreds of free drugs in states, only 50 in central scheme -Rema Nagarajan
-The Times of India The union health ministry's target of distributing 50 drugs free under the free essential drug scheme is so much lower than the hundreds of drugs being provided by states with a functioning free drugs scheme that it has left health officials in these states puzzled. After starting off by talking of distributing 348 drugs in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) during the tenure of Dr Harsh...
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