-The Business Standard Skimmed milk powder 'buffer' might raise prices  The government’s proposal that a buffer stock of skimmed milk powder (SMP) be created in order to minimise volatility in milk prices is so unsound a proposition that it should be shelved. The proposal, sent to the inter-ministerial group on inflation by the food ministry, involves keeping a reserve stock of SMP with milk-processing units by offering them a handsome subsidy. The...

-The Economic Times Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has taken charge of the UPA's initiatives to directly transfer welfare benefits and subsidies into individual beneficiaries' bank accounts - a system that would plug the rampant Leakages of funds earmarked for the poor via schemes such as NREGA on which the government spends over 3,00,000 crore annually. A new ministerial co-ordination committee under the PM would now fast-track the architecture for cash transfers while...

-The Times of India An SMS alert that tells the position of stocks in ration shops. A front-to-back computerization tracking food grain movement from procurement to rations shops. And a swipe card to allow BPL users to access subsidized food grain. A two-stage Rs 4,200 crore recast of India's notoriously leaky public distribution system (PDS) is likely to considered by the Cabinet on Monday along with a Rs 1.25 lakh crore expansion...

Direct cash transfers or food coupons should be used by the government to provide services to the poor, says Farzana Afridi, Assistant Professor, Economics and Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi. Afridi, who obtained her PhD in economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and an MA in economics from the Delhi School of Economics, says that although the Mid Day Meal Programme is having a substantial effect, the...

-The Indian Express The subsidy bill in the current financial year is expected to rise to 2.4 per cent of the GDP from 1.9 per cent estimated in the Budget, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said today. "The estimated major subsidies in 2012-13 would be around 2.4 per cent of GDP," he said while intervening in a discussion at the meeting of the Full Planning Commission to approve the 12th Plan draft document. The...