(Credit to: The Freepress Journal)
Anjit Ranade, senior economist based in Mumbai, writes in The Free Press Journal that a direct universal cash benefit “can replace ill-targeted subsidies on cooking gas, fertiliser and food grain,” under India’s current welfare system.
4.2% of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is spent on subsidies: electricity, fertilizer, food, oil, rail, and water. Many of the subsidies do not make their way to the purported beneficiaries because they are untargeted. Ranade reports, targeted subsidies can use the subsidies better.
Vijay Roshi, Reader in Economics at Oxford University, is an early supporter of UBI for India. With all considered, Roshi sees UBI as a possibility with 3.5% of India’s GDP. Ranada said, “UBI is based on a Gandhian principle: societal welfare is determined by how we treat our worst off.”
Read the full article here:
Ajit Ranade, “From NREGA to universal basic income“, The Free Press Journal, December 12th, 2016