Weakening Welfare - The Public Distribution o f Food in India

Weakening Welfare - The Public Distribution o f Food in India

Product ID: 8860

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Author: Madhura Swaminathan
Publisher: LeftWord
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 140
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8187496096

Description

This book is a powerful argument for expanding and strengthening the public distribution system in a country where hunger, poverty and malnutrition are as endemic as in India.

The reigning orthodoxy of structural adjustment, however, preaches exactly the opposite. This book is a sharp indictment of food policies of the liberalization era. It demonstrates how these policies will worsen food and nutrition security among the vast majority of the Indian people. Looking at the effects of targeting of food subsidies on other countries, it marshals arguments in favor of making PDS universal.

There is little doubt that PDS, as it functions today, has failed by and large to provide nutritional support to the people and required genuine reform. The exception is Kerala, the only state in India where PDS has been near universal. This book discusses alternative proposals for making PDS an effective measure of food security.

Written in a lucid, non-technical style, the book presents a wealth of recent data that will be handy afro the expert as for the interested

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction
PDS in India: Phases of Development
Why we need a System of Food Distribution
What Ails PDS Today? Failures and Successes of PDS in India
Structural Adjustment and Food Subsidy: Selected Country Experiences
Policy Changes Since 1991
Appendix: The Costs of Targeting
What Needs to be Done: A Strategy to Reform PDS
Conclusions

Bibliography
Index