My boss once told me fix the cause, not the effect.
Free food subsidies are really doomed for failure. This is in part a lack of long term solutions to these problems. Around 12-15 years back in India everybody had something called 'Ration card'. Its there today too, but back then you were eligible for rations at subsidized prices, I remember standing in long queues outside ration shops for wheat, rice, oil, sugar and kerosene. Needless to say these schemes were a legacy of the communist set up that India had for a long time. Realizing that this is not likely to scale. The government now issued new cards called 'BPL cards'(BPL- Below poverty line). That means this wasn't even for the poor, this was for the poorest among the poor. This is failing too. There are also other food schemes, in my state Karnataka, kids in government schools get mid day meals called 'Akshaya Patra'. Which is largely bad food served. Often contracted to some guy who pays the highest bribe. The food is generally unhygienic and lacks nutrition. I think by now everybody must know these free food schemes are a big failure.
The problem is India has huge inefficiencies in agriculture. The farming framework is massively unproductive. There are many reasons for this. Firstly the methods themselves belong to old stone age. Many farmers in villages farm with cows and bulls. Fertilizers/insecticides/pesticides are abused to the core to boost production. Irrigation isn't figured out yet. There are some major dams, but irrigation infrastructure is just totally absent. Droughts and floods are common. We either don't have water when we need it or there is simply too much water and we don't what to do about it. Farming land is subject to division through inheritance.
Apart from this the distribution is broken. Tons of grain rots because its not shipped and transported. Middle men act as a parasites in entire food-supply chain and add no value driving the end consumer prices high.
There are various experiments carried out especially forming communities in villages to encourage building local reservoirs and other efficient farming methods. But this will take a long time.
The political parties are dead opposed to FDI's in retail and farming. There by technology inflow from outside is limited. All this for vote bank politics.
Basically India is reeling under effects of its communist past and is held back because of inefficiencies of its political system combined sum total ignorance among the farmers.
So its not just corruption there are train of issues that result in these sort of problems.
Free food subsidies are really doomed for failure. This is in part a lack of long term solutions to these problems. Around 12-15 years back in India everybody had something called 'Ration card'. Its there today too, but back then you were eligible for rations at subsidized prices, I remember standing in long queues outside ration shops for wheat, rice, oil, sugar and kerosene. Needless to say these schemes were a legacy of the communist set up that India had for a long time. Realizing that this is not likely to scale. The government now issued new cards called 'BPL cards'(BPL- Below poverty line). That means this wasn't even for the poor, this was for the poorest among the poor. This is failing too. There are also other food schemes, in my state Karnataka, kids in government schools get mid day meals called 'Akshaya Patra'. Which is largely bad food served. Often contracted to some guy who pays the highest bribe. The food is generally unhygienic and lacks nutrition. I think by now everybody must know these free food schemes are a big failure.
The problem is India has huge inefficiencies in agriculture. The farming framework is massively unproductive. There are many reasons for this. Firstly the methods themselves belong to old stone age. Many farmers in villages farm with cows and bulls. Fertilizers/insecticides/pesticides are abused to the core to boost production. Irrigation isn't figured out yet. There are some major dams, but irrigation infrastructure is just totally absent. Droughts and floods are common. We either don't have water when we need it or there is simply too much water and we don't what to do about it. Farming land is subject to division through inheritance.
Apart from this the distribution is broken. Tons of grain rots because its not shipped and transported. Middle men act as a parasites in entire food-supply chain and add no value driving the end consumer prices high.
There are various experiments carried out especially forming communities in villages to encourage building local reservoirs and other efficient farming methods. But this will take a long time.
The political parties are dead opposed to FDI's in retail and farming. There by technology inflow from outside is limited. All this for vote bank politics.
Basically India is reeling under effects of its communist past and is held back because of inefficiencies of its political system combined sum total ignorance among the farmers.
So its not just corruption there are train of issues that result in these sort of problems.