India to Slash Spending on Food Subsidy for 800 Million People
- The cut comes as government wants to shrink its budget deficit
- India discontinued a pandemic-era program offering free grain
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India will spend less on a food subsidy program that feeds 800 million people after the government stopped providing some grain for free.
Spending will be cut to 1.97 trillion rupees ($24 billion) in the new fiscal year starting April 1 from an estimated 2.87 trillion rupees this year, according to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget presentation on Wednesday. That’s still double the pre-pandemic level of about 1 trillion rupees.