Congress president Sonia Gandhi has said the government must ensure that the prices of essential commodities remain affordable for the aam aadmi (common man). In a 'Letter to Congresspersons' in the latest issue of the party mouthpiece, she also put the onus of controlling price rise on the state governments, saying they should strengthen the public distribution system and control black marketing and hoarding.
The praise for peasants, most of whom are subsistence farmers, comes ahead of general elections due in a few months. The minister presented statistics to hard-sell the government's initiatives to prop up the agriculture sector and improve the conditions of roughly about 60 per cent of the country's population depending upon it.
However, storage capacity way behind even present public distribution system procurement need.
HDFC Bank on Wednesday reported a 2.3 per cent year-on-year rise in its consolidated net profit to Rs 17,657 crore for the October-December quarter, restricted by slower loan growth. On a standalone basis, the largest private sector lender's net profit came at Rs 16,735.50 crore for the period, up from Rs 16,372.54 crore in the year-ago period, but marginally down from the preceding quarter's Rs 16,820.97 crore.
The BCG project, which is supported by the United Nations' World Food Programme, the government of India and the government of Orissa, involves scanning finger prints and the iris for preparing biometric cards for a population of around 1 million. Srijan Pal Singh, an IIM-A student, who is part of the project, says the biometric cards will be filtered through a super computer to avoid duplications.
As part of steps to control inflation and augment availability of essential commodities, the government is considering re-allocating wheat in place of rice for the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) and other welfare schemes.
The report noted that the value of food coupons needs to be indexed to food inflation. Public distribution system is a major initiative of the government to ensure food security for the poor.
The study of the Targeted Public Distribution System, which covered 18 states, held that though the offtake per household has shown improvement yet only about 57 per cent of the below the poverty line households are covered. The information was given by minister of state for finance Pawan Kumar Bansal in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. Based on evaluation studies and feedback received from states, a nine point action plan has been jointly formulated.
On supply of free televisions, he said he would explain it in detail at an election public meeting on April 5.
The government's decision to put on hold even limited cuts in ration shop entitlements spells trouble for any future attempts to target subsidies.
'I have seen, even in my village, people hanging pictures of Communist leaders -- Jyoti Basu, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong -- in their drawing rooms. Could we not hang pictures of Swami Vivekananda? '
The government on Friday admitted that market prices of pulses are higher than the import rates and said it would soon launch a scheme of supplying them at subsidised rates to people through ration shops.
Worried over its failed procurement operations and anticipating a shortfall in production, the Centre has decided to invite tenders for import of 1 million tones of wheat.
As part of the change in outlook, all these mills are now modernising its equipment and sourcing high quality paddy from local markets and neighbouring states.They have also started broadening their market in domestic and foreign shores.
With production hitting a three-year low of 14.7 million tonnes in this sugar season (October to September), the government is also expected to double the levy quota for the PDS from 10 to 20 per cent to tide over shortages. The levy price and quota act as a notional benchmark for open market sugar prices, which have doubled to Rs 34 to Rs 35 a kg since last September, owing to a global shortage. The price of levy sugar is half that of the open market price.
Food security for all was a poll promise from the ruling Congress party before this year's general elections.
Taxing capital less may not lead to more investments but taxing more will drive capital away, Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran on Friday said during a discussion on Inequality, Economic Growth and Inclusion. While it is easy to drive capital out, bringing it back is a lot harder, said Nageswaran.
An MLA of Bihar's ruling Janta Dal-United has lodged an FIR against his son for allegedly threatening a shopkeeper for extortion. \n
Strongly advocating reforms in all segments of agriculture, the government on Friday said it will take up with Nabard its plans to double the rural credit in the next three years.
The government has decided to scrap a plan to purchase wheat through a series of small domestic tenders in different parts of the country, fearing that private traders may corner most orders.
Under attack from Left parties and other allies like DMK, the government on Tuesday put on hold the decision to reduce quantity of foodgrains under the public distribution system that would have brought down food subsidy.
The central government on Thursday ruled out the restructuring of the Food Corporation of India and instead asked the states to remove the shortcomings in the public distribution system.\n\n
Earlier, the administration had announced a 24-hour curfew on May 2 and 3 and asked Khargone residents to celebrate the Eid-al-Fitr and Akshaya Tritiya festivals at home.
The government has allowed Reliance Industries Ltd and Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Ltd to sell kerosene outside the public distribution system, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said on Thursday.
ONGC on Friday said it hopes to begin marketing of LPG and Kerosene soon.
The Chhattisgarh government has decided to set up model fair-price shops (FPS) in each district and encourage owners to act as banking correspondents for providing financial services. The state has around 12,300 fair-price shops across 33 districts. The state government is, however, encouraging FPS owners to provide a host of services besides acting as a banking correspondent.
Under-realisation on selling domestic LPG and kerosene through public distribution system is likely to be around Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion) during the current fiscal, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said on Monday.
The government is likely to allow Reliance Industries Ltd to sell domestic cooking gas directly to bulk consumers in the country to overcome the problem of glut in LPG during lean season.
'It has changed the political character of India by ejecting socialism as an ideology from the Constitution of India.'
The government on Monday decided to hike petrol price by Rs 4 a litre and diesel by Rs 2 per litre
