The National Advisory Council, chaired by Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, met for the second time on Thursday after its recent revival and unanimously endorsed the idea of universal access to the public distribution system (PDS) in rural areas.
The National Advisory Council, chaired by Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, met for the second time on Thursday after its recent revival and unanimously endorsed the idea of universal access to the public distribution system in rural areas. It was agreed that a universalised PDS should be implemented initially in 150 districts, a member said.
An Empowered Group of Ministers, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, is likely to meet on May 21 to decide on freeing petrol and diesel prices from government control.
Siphoning off food and fuel meant for the poor has made India's public distribution system ineffective.
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.
The new economic dawn that is being sought to be initiated in the state may have received a severe jolt from two ongoing developments
"We have suggested a fund for drought or flood, and when our production is hit. The fund will be with the states which the Centre will provide. The implementing agency will be the respective state governments," said K V Thomas, minister of state for agriculture and food.
Former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister and a veteran Congress leader Gegong Apang was grated bail on Friday by the Gauhati high court in connection with the Rs 1,000 crore public distribution system scam.
The ban on onion export is temporary and will be reviewed every two weeks until its prices decline below Rs 15 per kg.
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.
'Salman's bad phase is going on for the last five-six years.'
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.
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.
After lagging behind the broader market over the past three and six months, defence sector stocks have regained ground, reversing their performance from the past month. Concerns about slowing order inflows, execution hurdles, supply chain disruptions, and high valuations had weighed on the sector.
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.
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.
'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? '
An MLA of Bihar's ruling Janta Dal-United has lodged an FIR against his son for allegedly threatening a shopkeeper for extortion. \n
'The government does not want to be transparent or accountable. Therefore, they do not want to appoint information commissioners.'
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
