NITI Aayog will soon undertake the evaluation of India’s biggest subsidy schemes, the National Food Security Act and LPG subsidy, to rationalise expenditure, prevent leakage and ensure benefits are reaching the eligible candidates.
The Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office, which is an attached office of NITI Aayog, has invited proposals for a central coordinating agency for evaluation of the two schemes, which together cost the exchequer nearly Rs 4,00,00 crore a year.
“The government implements one the largest public food and nutritional safety nets in the world through the National Food Security Act (NFSA), enacted in 2013.
However, despite the large public expenditure, gains in the food security and nutritional outcomes in India have been slow with the country accounting for roughly 30% of the global burden of hunger,” the DMEO said in the RFP document.
Explaining the rationale behind evaluation of the LPG subsidy, the DMEO further said that India is the third largest energy consumer in the world after China and the USA. “The current consumption of LPG in India has risen to 12.3% of total petroleum products compared to 1.13% of kerosene. The ongoing schemes will potentially increase the usage of LPG further, thus, making their evaluation imperative,” it added.
According to DMEO, the NFSA, 2013 provides a legal mandate for the distribution of food grains at subsidized prices, cooked meals, take home rations and food security allowance through a network of schemes namely the Targeted Public Distribution System (PDS), Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), and Mid-Day-Meal (MDM) scheme.
The cost of implementing the food subsidy under TPDS was Rs 4,22,618.11 crore as per the revised estimate for 2021 while the cost of implementing MDM and ICDS was Rs 12,900 crore and Rs 17,252.21 crore respectively, it said.
As per the DMEO, the petroleum and natural gas consumption in India amounts to more than one-third of the country’s energy needs. “Further, the demand for oil and gas has been burgeoning over the years with rising population, economic growth, and concomitant demand for cleaner energy,” it added.
