Pawar Red-Flags an out-of-control subsidy bill

Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has estimated, given his experience in the ministry, that the food subsidy would shoot up, under the bill, to around Rs 1.15-1.2 lakh crore. When you put that together with the subsidies on fuel, which would be about the same, and the Rs 80,000 crore on fertiliser, as well as the Rs 40,000 crore on the rural employment guarantee scheme, you would be forced to ask hard questions about priorities. Or, as he put it during an Idea Exchange with Loksatta: “If so much is spent on subsidies, what is left for development?”

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