Letters: Misplaced welfare

Apropos the article "The real moral failure in the food security Bill debate" (May 7), the issue is not the government's inability to help the poor, but its failure to find the right way of doing so. Why go ahead and provide subsidised food grain through a leaky public distribution system to an extraordinarily large number of people that includes many non-poor? In T N Ninan's column "The big one" (Weekend Ruminations, March 23), the author had rightly explained how many among those intended to be given subsidised food included "people who are poor enough to live in slums but not so poor that they need grain at a 90 per cent subsidy". Also, let's be mindful of the costs involved and the Food Corporation of India's limited storage capacity. Why provide welfare through a failed and anachronistic delivery mechanism, and not focus on cash transfers? Only cash transfers will help empower the poor and potentially give them greater freedom of choice.

Manish Kumar Patna

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