-Down to Earth Hurdles in availing financial support under Nikshay Poshan Yojana will exacerbate India’s tuberculosis crisis Only two-thirds of people living with tuberculosis benefitted from the Union government’s sole nutrition support scheme last year, highlighting bottlenecks in the fight against a major public health concern. The Nikshay Poshan Yojana entitles every tuberculosis (TB) patient, seeking treatment in either the public or private sector, to a direct benefit transfer (DBT) of Rs 500...

-TheWire.in While the system was rightly designed to eliminate ghost beneficiaries, the impact of exclusion errors needs to be professionally and independently evaluated in detail. The direct benefit transfer (DBT) system has come to dominate the discourse on public service delivery in India. The existing rhetoric around its efficacy being one of anti-corruption, cost efficiency, and elimination of middlemen. Payments under DBT are made to low-income households using an elaborate, digitised system...

The recently released quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data broadly confirms the dip in employment and jobs during the countrywide lockdown period, followed by a certain degree of recovery in the post-lockdown months last year as have been indicated by various survey-based studies and research papers. The quarterly bulletin on PLFS provides data on key employment and unemployment indicators i.e. Unemployment Rate (UR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Labour...

-GaonConnection.com The central government has recently announced Rs 100 per child under the mid-day meal scheme to meet the nutritional needs of children in the pandemic. But, activists say this amount is insufficient and there is a need to resume cooked meal services universally with better quality. The central government has announced Rs 1,200 crore [Rs 12,000 million] to be given to 118 million children across the country who are enrolled under...

-Down to Earth State pays out 83% of wheat MSP due for rabi season in a month Punjab has successfully paid the lion’s share of price due to wheat farmers for their produce via the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) route as the Rabi marketing season nears its end. However, farmers are unsure about what it will mean for their equation with the aarthiyas or commission agents, who have been their financial backbones...