Feb 27, 2016, 04.50 PM | Source: Moneycontrol.com
The central and state governments subsidise a wide range of products — including rice, wheat, pulses, sugar, kerosene, LPG, naphtha, water, electricity, fertiliser, iron ore, railways, among others — in order to make these affordable.
The Rs 1,00,000 crore that is distributed as subsidies is benefitting the rich or the better-off more than the poor or the truly deserving, the Economic Survey observes. This is on account of six commodities such as gold, LPG, kerosene, electricity, railway fares, aviation turbine fuel (ATF) plus the Small Savings Scheme, it adds.
"The total amount given as subsidy is no less than Rs 91,350 crore, not to forget that this is an underestimate of the actual subsidy to the better-off because of the underestimation of consumption by the rich in the National Statistics Survey (NSS)," it further explains. This, coupled with the subsidies inherent in just the PPF schemes, amounts to total subsidy rising to well above Rs 1 lakh crore.
This, ofcourse, presents an opportunity to the government to plug leakages. To this effect, the government believes the JAM Trinity — Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile — can help to implement large-scale, technology-enabled and real-time Direct Benefit Transfers (DBTs) to improve economic lives of the poor. Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had said in July that the government has managed to reform the fuel subsidy delivery in India through JAM and the 'Pahal' programme was successfully delivering LPG subsidies.
The Economic Survey claims leakages have reduced by 24 percent through JAM-PAHAL. The central and state governments subsidise a wide range of products — including rice, wheat, pulses, sugar, kerosene, LPG, naphtha, water, electricity, fertiliser, iron ore, railways, among others — in order to make these affordable.