3 The rich seem to be gaining more from govt subsidies

6% of India’s central budget was spent on subsidies according to the 2020-21 Budget. There has always been a debate on whether or not they benefit those at the bottom of the pyramid. The LASI report has tried to answer this question by estimating per capita income from government/public transfers. This has been defined as income received from a list of 13 kinds of government transfers such as agricultural subsidies or subsidies on LPG cylinders. The statistics present an interesting challenge for the government. India does well when it comes to social and spatial targeting of subsidies, but the rich still end up gaining more from them. Households living in villages or belonging to Scheduled Tribes (STS), Scheduled Castes (SCS) and Other Backward Classes (OBCS) report higher per capita incomes from subsidies than the ones living in cities or not belonging to these social groups. Despite this, top 20% of households get ₹1.43 of government support for every rupee which goes to the poorest households from such spending.