Madhya Pradesh lost an estimated Rs 1,428 crore in 2013-14 due to leakages in the public distribution system, the Economic Survey of India for 2014-2015 has revealed.
The report, tabled in Parliament on Friday and available on the Union government’s website indiabudget.nic.in, said the estimated leakages in PDS accounted for about 51% (11.54 lakh tonnes) of the total allocation of food grains.
In terms of fiscal cost, Madhya Pradesh stands at 4th position after Uttar Pradesh (with Rs 3,727 crore losses), West Bengal (Rs 1,864 crore) and Rajasthan (Rs 1,495 crore).
According to the survey, the “excess allocations were computed as the difference between PDS allocation and PDS consumption.”
Similarly, the “fiscal cost was calculated by multiplying the per quintal subsidy (Rs 1,237 for wheat and Rs 1,619 for rice) by the total excess allocation”.
“Leakages are large and present in most states, and that they are significantly larger for wheat (54%) than for rice (15%). The fiscal cost of these leakages is also large — about Rs 5,800 crore for PDS rice and Rs 12,600 crore for PDS wheat (in the entire country)."
The report said: “Recent academic research on the subject of PDS leakages has found leakages are falling though still unacceptably high. There is suggestive evidence that leakages are larger in APL rather than the BPL category. We note that any proposal to reduce food subsidy leakages has to bear in mind the provisions of the NFS Act, which provides for a total of 5 kg of subsidised grain (rice, wheat and/or millet at Rs 3, 2 and 1 per kg, respectively) to households as well as cash benefits for pregnant women and hot meals for young children.
{{/usCountry}}The report said: “Recent academic research on the subject of PDS leakages has found leakages are falling though still unacceptably high. There is suggestive evidence that leakages are larger in APL rather than the BPL category. We note that any proposal to reduce food subsidy leakages has to bear in mind the provisions of the NFS Act, which provides for a total of 5 kg of subsidised grain (rice, wheat and/or millet at Rs 3, 2 and 1 per kg, respectively) to households as well as cash benefits for pregnant women and hot meals for young children.
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