Distributing chana is easier than other varieties of pulses as it only requires cleaning and sorting and can be consumed whole; it was also abundantly available with Nafed.
The decision was taken by the Cabinet Committee on Prices, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi.
'I am sceptical of the Indian economy returning to a sustained high-growth trajectory any time soon'
Despite the increase, at Rs 64.32 per litre ATF costs less than petrol and diesel.
The government's subsidies on food, fertilisers and petroleum are estimated to decline by 39 per cent to Rs 4,33,108 crore this fiscal and fall further by 27 per cent to nearly Rs 3.18 lakh crore in 2022-23. In its revised Budget (RE) estimate for the 2021-22 fiscal, the government has pegged total subsidies to be at Rs 4,33,108 crore against the actual Budget estimate of Rs 7,07,707 crore in the previous financial year. Out of which, the food subsidy is estimated to decline to Rs 2,86,469 crore in the current fiscal from Rs 5,41,330 crore in 2020-21, while petroleum subsidy is estimated to fall to Rs 6,517 crore from Rs 38,455 crore in the said period.
'Most of the measures the finance minister announced will take effect after the lockdown.' 'By that time, millions of people will be starving.'
The surge in wheat export from India owing to the Ukraine crisis has once again demonstrated how farmers in states that have flexible marketing frameworks and low taxes benefit more from an emerging situation. The bulk of the wheat exported from India, trade and industry sources say, is being sourced at rates significantly higher than the state-mandated price of Rs 2,015 per quintal in Madhya Pradesh (MP), Uttar Pradesh (UP), and Gujarat - states which have low mandi taxes compared to Punjab and Haryana. This is not only benefiting farmers there but could also lead to significant savings for the states in procurement costs in the months to come.
Shrug off the yoke of the imperialism of Delhi. That is why the DMK manifesto offers what it offers: The promise that Tamil Nadu will, one day, become an independent republic, notes Aditi Phadnis.
The Bill at best makes the existing public distribution system a legal right, an aspect that seems of little consequence to the lords of high finance, whose primary anxiety is the FSB-by-numbers.
5-kg free food grains per person per month would be given to around 80 crore people for the two months.
Universalisation of the public distribution system can help the needy get low-priced but nutritious food and cover most of the Indian population at a very low cost to the exchequer, argues Gopal Krishna.
Cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar will now get an opportunity to examine issues related to information technology. The Rajya Sabha MP has been included in the Standing Committee on Information and Technology.
Only two in every five migrants said they received ration or cooked food from the administration either daily or at times.
The study showed that 50 per cent of households have reduced the number of meals ever since the lockdown was imposed
All those who have been dismayed by the food security ordinance should thank Manmohan Singh and his colleagues for a neat optical trick, says T N Ninan.
The government on Wednesday put on hold a hike in LPG prices in states including Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, where an increase in local levies had led to a rise in fuel rates.
"The agitation of farmers continues and the government has shown shocking insensitivity and arrogance going through the charade of consultations," she said.
IPS officer M S Chauhan, who probed the high-profile PDS scam and mysteriously went missing in Arunchal Pradesh's West Kameng district on October 16, has been traced in New Delhi on Sunday.
The Madras high court has observed that free PDS rice given to ration card holders should be restricted only to families below the poverty line, noting that doling out freebies to all sections of people have made people "lazy".
In other welfare schemes, such as those for cooking gas, pension and scholarships, which are linked to DBT, cash is transferred directly into the bank accounts of beneficiaries.
AI, IoT, 3D printing, drones, data storage, quantum computing etc are all re-writing world economic order, the FM said.
Cracking down further on hoarding, the Centre on Wednesday put onion and potato under purview of the Essential Commodities Act and imposed stock holding limits in a bid to improve availability and rein in prices.
The conference was to launch a pilot scheme on smart card-based delivery of essential commodities under the targeted PDS in Haryana and Chandigarh.
Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said whenever BJP came to power, prices of essential commodities saw a fall.
Reaching out to tribals, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday lauded their contribution to Indian culture through the ages and said Lord Ram drew inspiration from them during his exile as he slammed the Congress for "neglecting" adivasis during its previous rules.
While LPG price was raised by Rs 18, kerosene saw a hike of Rs 3 per litre
In urban India, the fall in rice consumption was 0.2 kg per person per month.
As the COVID wave gradually shifts to rural areas, several states are gearing up to check its spread through self-proclaimed lockdowns by Panchayati Raj institutions, creating a database of migrants and providing free online medical consultation to the sick.
The government's subsidies on food, fertilisers, LPG and kerosene are pegged at Rs 5.96 lakh crore in the current fiscal, over 2.5-fold jump from the initial budget estimates as the Centre distributed additional foodgrains free of cost to help poor mitigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2020 Budget, presented in the pre-COVID scare, the government had estimated the subsidy bill at Rs 227,794 crore. However, all the budget estimates, have undergone major revisions as the country imposed strict lockdown to check the spread of COVID-19.
The survey showed that women workers fared worse than men when it came to employment recovery (53 per cent versus 57 per cent) and urban areas have been much worse hit despite a quicker bounce back.
'It may take two years for the economy to return to normal.' 'We should ensure that the vulnerable do not dig into their savings or give up their assets because that will set them back by several years.'
Delhi may become the first state to move to direct cash pay-outs of subsidies on kerosene sold through the public distribution system (PDS). The petroleum ministry said it has "welcomed" a proposal to this effect from the Planning Commission, which acted on a plan suggested by Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday announced job for a member of the family of each farmer from the state who died during the agitation against the Centre's new farm laws.
At the heart of his criticism is the delay in decision making and a lack of monitoring. Some officials, however, blamed the delays on overambitious contractors.
Bhupesh Baghel said about his father that he respected his father as a son, but as a chief minister, none of his mistakes that will disturb public order can be ignored.
The Congress Working Committee, the highest decision making body of the grand old party, passed a resolution to this effect. The CWC, chaired by Sonia Gandhi earlier discussed the issue along with that of the farmers' agitation and the COVID-19 vaccination drive and passed three resolutions on each of them.
A day after the Patna high court slammed the Bihar government for its poor handling of the second wave of the pandemic and sought to know whether it was enforcing lockdown or not, the administration on Tuesday announced imposition of lockdown from May 5 to May 15.
The bench also said that a seven-judge bench needed to be constituted for authoritatively deciding a batch of petitions challenging the Aadhaar scheme on grounds including that it infringes on the Right to Privacy of citizens.
While the likelihood of these states going the Lanka or Greece way may be an alarming assessment, the financial situation of some states such as Punjab and West Bengal is indeed quite weak.
'With the largest number of malnourished people on the planet, India is poised to be a nation that significantly under-performs as an economy.'
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