A dozen alternatives to food subsidy for improved welfare of the poor

More roads of the all-weather, motorable kind. Only good roads that connect villages to towns and towns to cities can price signals carry across the system and boost production. Roads are not enough. The farmer needs freedom to sell to those who offer the best price, taken away by the middleman-centred Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act. So, let the Centre use spare cash to bribe states to scrap the APMC Act, or amend it to exclude perishables. Let the funds go to build climate-controlled warehouses and modern grain silos — storage capacity is short by nearly 30 million tonnes. Read More