Stamping in Nutrition
“The poor are a gold mine,” wrote economist Thomas Sowell two decades ago, arguing that often anti-poverty programmes benefit those who administer them rather than those for whom they are administered. India’s food procurement, storage and distribution system lends unequivocal support to Sowell's contention: Out of every Rs. 100 spent on food subsidy in India, only Rs. 3.70 reached the poor in the year 2000-01.
"The poor are a gold mine," wrote economist Thomas Sowell two decades ago, arguing that often anti-poverty programmes benefit those who administer them rather than those for whom they are administered.
Abstract: "The poor are a gold mine," wrote economist Thomas Sowell two decades ago, arguing that often anti-poverty programmes benefit those who administer them rather than those for whom they are administered. Sowell went on to suggest that the US spending on anti-poverty programmes at the time was three times that needed to lift every man, woman, and child in America above the poverty line by simply sending money to the poor. Considering Sowell's impeccable credentials as a conservative economist, it is tempting to dismiss this assessment as reflective of the general hostility of conservatives towards government interventions. But the current state of India's food procurement, storage and distribution system lends such unequivocal support to his position that even die-hard liberals must take him seriously. Much of the food subsidy in India today pays for sustaining the 400,000 strong bureaucracy of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and "aiding" the relatively well to do farmers of Punjab and Haryana.