Food Insecurity Bill

despite seething failure of Right to Education and Right to Work due to the same reasons feared for Right to Food, if Government could still dare to experiment with NFSB, salute to its vigour.

Salute to Sonia Gandhi!! It is thanks to her that UPA-acclaimed panacea for India’s chronic malnutrition has been finally taken up; now that President has signed on Food Security ordinance. Overwhelming it is to witness the restlessness of UPA-2 that it, for the sake of millions of poor, did not even let democratic principles become hurdle in the promulgation of National Food Security Bill and pushed it through ordinance route despite opposition’s lambaste that Monsoon Session of Parliament is just few weeks ahead. Who cares the bill has been hanging in balance for the past four years! Current haste of UPA in the election year will at least refurbish its image among good chunk of gullible voters. Who cares that Indian economy is in tatters and can’t bear the brunt of subsidies! At least ours is a benign, people-centric Government whose prime motto is to remain politically correct not economically. While rupee-slide, inflation-rise and growth-fatigue might attract criticism of economist-elite but doesn’t matter! At least political benevolence when election is looming will influence the election-time-elite i.e. destitute populace enjoying political freebies.

Far-sighted UPA is praiseworthy that through NFSB it sanely transforms its social-obligation to provide food security to its population into their legal right to ask for it. For the first time any food subsidy scheme legally entitles whopping 67% of Indian population to avail 5kg rice, wheat and coarse grains from Govt. at respectively 3,2,1 rs. per month. Though it will raise the food subsidy bill to 1.2 lakh crore from 90,000 crore but at least 67% of the population will remain indebted and grateful to UPA’s munificence. It is commendable that Govt. is willing to feed (fund) the king of populist schemes though its Exchequer cannot afford to feed even a feeble-soldier-like populist scheme. UPA’s confidence and optimism must also be praised as it could rely on creaky Public Distribution System. Who cares that it has often been blamed for massive pilferage, at least people can now move to courts if they get denied of subsidized hoards, thanks to Centre and state level Grievance Redressal Mechanisms. Heart goes out to this right of people. PDS will not be fixed. Identification of beneficiaries will not be improved. But complaint can be lodged if Right to Food is not availed. As if complaint or for that matter punishment will bring food security to people! A person whose condition binds him to depend on Govt. bounties in the first place can ever be in a position to fight against govt. authorities/bureaucracy?  Well if UPA assumes so, one can’t help but believe so!

62.3 mt of food grains will be needed per year to meet out to scheme beneficiaries. Needless to say Govt. will become the biggest buyer of food from farmers distorting the already dilapidated agriculture market in the country. Who cares that Indian food market will be practically nationalized, at least Govt. will have enough food freebies to woo number of poor voters. Indian Government is bound to not conform to global trend of setting in competitive participation of private players in food market. After all, it will unnecessarily improvise food purchase-sale system in India, paving way for sufficient incentives to farmers and quality of food on cheaper price to consumers. Also, it would curtail Govt.’s monopoly over food market, something which should not happen as it is the interests of people in power not that of consumers, farmers or poor which ought to matter under the revered regimen of UPA.

 A section of people might argue that there is no dearth of food subsidy schemes in India. It is only poor identification of needy and poor implementation of schemes which causes subsidies not reaching to who it is meant for. They might further contend that fixing the loopholes of PDS and getting authentic poverty estimation through Social Economic and Caste Census (SECC) data or any other means is the pre-requisite for any food subsidy scheme to fructify the desired results, but they are missing out on most important logic. While such steps might actually bring in food and nutrition security for undernourished but would not guarantee votes. Why to bother, why to invest time in such social-welfare which does not accompany political-welfare.

Given the fracas over ordinance route and a widely held belief that UPA alone is likely to reap the benefits of implementing a populist scheme, rival state governments will remain hell-bent to tone down the positive impact of NFSB, if any, in order to not let UPA point-score. Who cares that Center state animosity will be the biggest cause why NFSB will prove to be an expensively disastrous scheme; at least it serves the political purpose of different political parties. Thus, despite seething failure of Right to Education and Right to Work due to the same reasons feared for Right to Food, if Government could still dare to experiment with NFSB, salute to its vigour. Long live Sonia Gandhi! Long live UPA!

Food Gambit

Reeling under huge fiscal deficit, it is unclear how the Govt. would fund such an expensive scheme also how it would acquire enough foodgrains to mete out to such a whopping population.

Despite series of  scams and comprehensive malfunctioning in right to education and right to work, Govt. seems undeterred and hell bent for implementing National Food Security Bill before the advent of general elections. The bill has been passed by cabinet and is likely to be kept before Parliament during the second half of the budget session.  This Bill aims at giving food security to 75% of rural and 50% of urban population. Reeling under huge fiscal deficit, it is unclear how the Govt. would fund such an expensive scheme also how it would acquire enough foodgrains to mete out to such a whopping population.

The Bill will provide guaranteed 5 kilograms of rice, wheat or coarse cereals to all the identified beneficiaries at a flat rate of Rs 3 per kg for rice, Rs 2 for wheat and Rs 1 for coarse cereals. There would not be any Above or Below Poverty Line demarcation but entitlements for beneficiaries under the Antodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) under which 35 kilograms of grains is provided per family will be retained in the Bill. Overall 67% of India’s 1.2 billion people are being covered in this scheme.

Why India is heavily undernourished despite a long history of food subsidies is because the quality and type of food being delivered don’t appeal to the poor in the first place. It is pathetic that no innovation is palpable in the mindset of Govt. to improvise the same. What is being delivered on the name of cheap food is low quality wheat, rice, millet etc. These grains aren’t enough for nourishment and quality of food like pulses, ghee, salt, green vegetables etc are too expensive to afford for destitute.

NFSB is based on creaky Public Distribution System that has been blamed time and again for failing to deliver the goods because of massive pilferage. The PDS is carried out nationwide with the help of over 5,00,000 ration shops. It will also prescribe guidelines to states for the identification of beneficiaries.  Infact,  a study done by the Planning Commission in 2005 showed that 58% of the subsidized food grains issued from the central pool do not reach the Below Poverty Line (BPL) families because of identification errors, non-transparent operation and unethical practices in the implementation of PDS. Given this NFSB will be disastrous more than any other scheme as exorbitant fund and food grains are at stake.

The government needs around 61 million tonnes of grains a year to implement the Act, which is nearly one-fourth of the country’s total food grain output. A couple of national-level farmers’ organizations have opposed the National Food Security Bill, saying it would “lead to nationalization of agriculture by making the government the biggest buyer, hoarder and seller of food grains”.

Agriculture market must be unregulated and farmers must be sufficiently incentivized to raise their food production. Globally this is a general practice but UPA’s flagship NFSB focuses on just opposite of that. As the subsidy burden is going to be quite high, Govt. will keep the minimum support price lower discouraging the small and marginal farmers to grow food grain. Thus, NFSB is likely to disastrously distort the already dilapidating food market in India.

The lack of vision visible in NFSB establishes the fact that it addresses nothing more than political motives of Congress. Going against the recommendations of Kelkar Committee to contain the food subsidy, Govt. intends to launch an even more expensive subsidy doll-out program which will raise the food subsidy burden to 1.1 lakh crore from the current 90,000 crore.  Failure to target right beneficiaries and faulty delivery mechanism can never make NFSB workable. A revolutionary, an innovative approach to architect the food subsidy program is the need of time otherwise Right to food security in its current form would mean nothing to who it aims at.