More than two years have passed and there seems to be no progress worth speaking about in making the promised law that will guarantee food for the people. The promise came from the UPA-2 as part of its election manifesto in 2009. It was a time of recovery from a time of economic troubles. The impact of the global economic slowdown came on top of the agrarian crisis and the...
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Don't replace subsidised food with cash: Swaminathan
-IANS Eminent agriculture scientist and a member of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), M.S. Swaminathan, has cautioned against the government's plan to replace subsidised food with cash under the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA). "The government's plan to replace subsidised ration with cash under the public distribution system (PDS) is faulty. It will lead to low procurement and less production subsequently. This will be bad for Indian agriculture," Swaminathan...
More »EGoM nod to cash subsidy for kerosene
-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...
More »Law vs governance
-The Business Standard Food security cannot be ensured by FCI and the existing PDS Successive drafts of the food security Bill seem to agree on one thing: a greater role for the Food Corporation of India (FCI). FCI buys grains at the minimum support price and distributes them through fair price shops and other food-related schemes like midday meals in schools and children’s nutrition as part of the Integrated Child Development Services....
More »PDS: Reform or Reject? by Rukmini Shrinivasan
Some interesting findings emerging on the Public Distribution System. A recent study of 100 villages in nine states says that leakages in the Public Distribution System are being plugged and diversion of grain has reduced, except in Bihar. The bad news, the researchers say, is that there are serious deficiencies in the BPL list. The study was conducted in 106 randomly selected villages in two districts each of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh,...
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