Unpaid bills of Rs.17,000 crore—and growing—have shown hidden food subsidies and financial mismanagement at a time when the government prepares to adopt the costliest, most ambitious legislation of its tenure. Documents accessed by Mint show this is the money the government now owes state-run Food Corporation of India (FCI), hampering its mammoth operation of buying grain from the farmer, storing, transporting and selling it to millions of poor Indians.