Each year, India spends tens of billions of dollars on the Public Distribution System (PDS), a food subsidy program that helps to ensure the food security of more than 800 million people. The largest such program in the world, the…

The Public Distribution System ensures the food security of some of India’s most impoverished citizens, but high transaction costs and a reliance on resource-intensive crops impose a price that does not appear on government ledgers. TCI aims to estimate the true cost of the PDS by accounting for hidden costs like the health and environmental impacts of the program.