Dear Editor, Mid‐day meal scheme is being implemented in India since August 15, 1995, as a part of the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education. It was introduced in India with an objective to enhance enrollment, retention, and attendance and simultaneously improving nutritional levels among children initially in 2408 blocks in the country which later spread to other block...

This paper examines targeting issues that emerge from FISP evaluations undertaken since 2006/07, and puts forward various options for improving targeting. Targeting objectives depend upon programme objectives. In the FISP targeting occurs at area and beneficiary levels – the former targeting subsidies to different zones or districts, the latter targeting beneficiaries within already targeted ar...

BACKGROUND China has made great progress in improving hospital delivery-the coverage of hospital delivery has increased to above 95% in most regions- some regions lag behind owing to geographic and economic inequality, particularly the poor ethnic minority areas of the Sichuan Province. This study explores factors which may influence hospital delivery from multiple perspectives, with implicatio...

In 2002, China announced a new funding strategy that would reestablish community-based health insurance (CHI) in rural areas, whereby the Chinese government will entice farmers' participation by providing each participant an annual subsidy of 10-20 Yuan (US 1.25-2.50 dollars). However, there is no evidence demonstrating how many farmers would be willing-to-join (WTJ) such newly developed govern...

Often, vaccination programs are carried out based on self-interest rather than being mandatory. Owing to the perceptions about risks associated with vaccines and the ‘herd immunity’ effect, it may provide suboptimal vaccination coverage for the population as a whole. In this case, some subsidy policies may be offered by the government to promote vaccination coverage. But, not all subsidy polici...

Releasing prices and performing cash subsidy payment to all applicants with a different income level create differences in the method of household function and different services of organizations including waste and recycling management organization. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of cash subsidy payment on the quantity of domestic waste in Rasht (Guilan province, Iran)....

When the government subsidizes a commodity, it normally intends to promote production and/or consumption of that commodity for either political, environmental, or economic reasons. Today one major subsidy is the ethanol program, currently with a $0.51 per gallon subsidy, which will in the near future amount to a bill of over $3 billion annually on 6 billion gallons of production. This paper inv...