PDS beneficiaries will pay more

Looking to the government-run Public Distribution System (PDS) to beat rising food prices may not remain such a good option.

Updated on: Nov 16, 2009, 23:57:37 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Looking to the government-run Public Distribution System (PDS) to beat rising food prices may not remain such a good option.

The government is set to increase the prices of food grains available to Above Poverty Line (APL) families considering the increasing burden of food subsidy.

There are 11.52 crore APL families in India that buy food grains at a subsidised price of Rs 8.50 for a kg of rice and Rs 6.50 for a kg of wheat, plus the transportation cost from the nearest Food Corporation of India's store to a PDS shop.

This means a subsidy of Rs 10 for a kg of rice and Rs 9 for a kg of wheat. The total cost to the government in 2008-09 is Rs 15,400 crore.

"With the increase in minimum support price for wheat and rice the subsidy burden for the government on account of APL families is expected to cross over Rs 20,000 in this financial year," a government official, not willing to be quoted, said.

The Food ministry has now asked an empowered Group of Ministers (eGoM) to increase the price of food grains for the APL families under the PDS system. The ministry has proposed a hike of up to Rs three per kilogram, the official said. The eGoM has powers to decide on behalf of the Union Cabinet.

The move is also aimed at cushioning 6.52 crore people below poverty line from the impact of rising food prices.

In the last nine months, the food prices have risen by 40 to 80 per cent but the government wants to provide wheat and rice at the existing rates.

Wheat is priced at Rs 4.15 and rice for Rs 5.65 plus transport costs to BPL families. The poorest of the poor identified as antodaya families get rice for Rs 3 and wheat for Rs 2.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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