To ensure transparency in delivery of commodities to the poor in Rajasthan The Rajasthan Government has decided to conduct the much sought-after social audit for fair price shops functioning under the public distribution system (PDS) to ensure transparency and effectiveness in the delivery of essential commodities to poor people. The move follows the success of similar exercise for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The social audit is being introduced...

The current perception that cash transfers can replace public provision of basic goods and services and become a catch-all solution for poverty reduction is false. Where cash transfers have helped to reduce poverty, they have added to public provision, not replaced it. For crucial items like food, direct provision protects poor consumers from rising prices and is part of a broader strategy to ensure domestic supply. Problems like targeting errors...

Cash transfers are now suggested by many as a silver bullet for addressing the problems that plague India’s anti-poverty programmes. This article argues instead for evidence-based policy and informed public debate to clarify the place, prospects and problems of cash transfers in India. By drawing on key empirical findings from academic and grey literature across the world an attempt is made to draw attention to three aspects of cash transfers...

Renu Devi is scared. The Planning Commission’s new definition of poverty will eject her from the set of below-poverty-line households, and her family will lose the right to 25kg rice and wheat a month at Rs 5 per kilo. The plan panel has fixed a cut-off of Rs 675 and Rs 870 as the monthly per head expenditure, in rural and urban areas respectively, for a family to qualify as poor....

The draft Food Security Bill makes it compulsory for state governments to pay a food security allowance to targeted sections in case of failure to supply foodgrain through a sweeping welfare scheme targeted at nearly three-fourths of the population. The amount will be decided by the central government. The draft bill also presses for a radical overhaul of the food distribution system by giving incentives to independent agencies that procure...