The paper presents a case for a phased rolling out of direct benefits transfer (DBT) for Food in India. By studying all states and Union Territories on three broad parameters: demographics, performance of the existing Public Distribution System (PDS), and current state of banking infrastructure,...

The public distribution system (PDS) has been one of the main policy instruments of the Government of India (GoI) to provide food security to the people of this country, especially the vulnerable ones. The recently enacted National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, also relies heavily on it to...

In-kind transfers can provide insurance benefits when prices of consumption goods vary, as is common in developing countries. We develop a model demonstrating that in-kind transfers are welfare improving to beneficiaries relative to cash if the covariance between the marginal utility of income...