Food subsidy at Rs 11,887 cr till August 10

India had run up a food subsidy bill of Rs 11,887 crore as of August 10, this fiscal, with the money spent on below poverty line and "antyodaya" families, Minister of State for Food and Consumer Affairs Akhilesh Prasad Singh informed the Lok Sabha.

An amount of Rs 16,492 crore was released as subsidy toward foodgrains distributed to BPL and antyodaya families in 2005-06, he said in a written reply.

In 2004-05, the transit loss of Food Corporation of India (FCI) stood at 0.48 per cent of the total 384 lakh tonne moved by the agency. The transit loss has been showing a declining trend since 2001-02 when the loss stood at 0.61 per cent of the 238 lakh tonne moved by FCI.

To a query, Singh said the government had no plans to increase the per capita allocation of levy sugar. The per capita levy sugar allocation has remained almost at the same level since June 2006.

On foodgrain offtake, Singh said the estimated monthly requirement of foodgrain for the Targeted Public Distribution and welfare schemes worked out to be 20 lakh tonne rice and 20 lakh tonne of wheat per month.

The minister said the stock of rice stood above buffer norms of 98 lakh tonne as on July 1, 2006 while the stock of wheat stood below the buffer norm of 171 lakh tonne on that date.