 "Govt plans media blitzkrieg to publicise Food Security ordinance")
The ordinance, which seeks to guarantee legal entitlement for cheap grain to 67 per cent of the population, has been billed as the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) biggest social security programme.
As for the ruling Congress party, it has begun its planned publicity drive. On Friday, it began announcing its “game changer” for the 2014 polls, the ordinance, much before President Pranab Mukherjee had signed it. With food minister K V Thomas in attendance at party headquarters, the Congress sought to gain the advantage on this “biggest social intervention in the world on food security.”
Dismissing Opposition charges against adopting the ordinance route, Ajay Maken, communication department incharge, stated: “When the Opposition doesn’t want the bill to be discussed in Parliament and disrupts it, what option do we have?” He assured that the “negligible (extra) burden of Rs 23,800 crore” on the exchequer would mean the “fiscal deficit will not be impacted in any way”.
‘Saturation coverage’
Government officials in the know said a full-fledged media strategy was being worked out, which could involve extensive use of all three forms of media — print, television and web — to highlight the finer points of the programme. A separate team of senior officials would also be formed to implement the media initiative. A high-level meeting between top officials of the information and broadcasting ministry and the department of food & public distribution, headed by their respective ministers, was held on Friday to work out the strategy. Officials said no decision was taken on the finances likely to incurred in the initiative.
Officials added states had been given six months from Friday to formalise the list of beneficiaries according to the guidelines mentioned in the ordinance. In the interim, they will continue to receive foodgrains in accordance with the existing Targeted Public Distribution System norms.
Party optimistic
Politically, the Congress party acknowledges the “number game” to get the ordinance turned into an enactment will have to be worked out on the floor of Parliament when it is put up for vote in the coming monsoon session. The Samajwadi Party (SP), which renders outside support to the government, is firmly opposed to the pending Bill. Attempting to quell the many questions that have dogged the legislation, Maken said issues such as financial impact, storage capacity, eventualities like drought, famine, etc, have all been looked into and addressed within the Bill/ordinance.
The programme is expected to cost the exchequer Rs 125,000 crore annually, compared with the FY14 food subsidy budget of Rs 90,000 crore. It promises five kg of wheat or rice or coarse cereals to each identified beneficiary at Rs 3 a kg for rice, Rs 2 a kg for wheat and Rs 1 a kg for coarse cereals. Officials said India would require 61.2 million tonnes of foodgrain annually, well within the average annual procurement of foodgrains since 2007-08 to 2011-12, of around 60.2 mt. The ordnance also guarantees a monthly allowance of Rs 1,000 for six months for all pregnant women and lactating mothers. It will also give legal entitlement for grains or cooked food to children in the age group of six months to six years according to the nutritional standards. Officials said the subsidised price in which wheat, rice and coarse cereals will be sold to the beneficiaries will be fixed only for three years. Thereafter, it will be reviewed by the government. However, it will never be more than the then prevailing minimum support price. The Centre has also decided to absorb all the incidental expenditure, which state governments will require to operationalise the Bill.
‘Well within capacity’
Thomas assured the present procurement was 60 mt and the storage capacity had been enhanced to 78 mt, so there is “no cause for concern.” As for “eventualities”, (a concern that had been flagged by Agriculture minister and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar), the minister said only on such eventualities would beneficiaries be given cash allowances.
Responding to the SP’s attack on the food bill as “anti-farmer”, the Congress from its official platform on Friday announced that the food subsidy bill in the past nine years had gone up five times from Rs 25,181 crore (2004) to Rs 1,24,723 crore and the legislation would only help the farmer. The minimum support price, too, had been hiked exponentially over the past nine years, benefiting farmers. Dismissing the attack by Opposition political parties that it was nothing less than a “poll gimmick for a beleaguered Congress party,” Maken said "This ( Food bill) might be a life saver, life changer for many people...Delay by even a single minute or day...God knows how many lives it could cost.”
Congress insiders see this Ordinance step as “beneficial” in both ways – lest the ordinance not get cleared within the stipulated six weeks window in Parliament, the Congress can rake in the electoral benefits, blaming the Opposition of scuttling its move to give “food to every hungry mouth. On the other hand, the ordinance translating into a bill and becoming a legal entitlement for citizens would see it reap electoral dividends not only in the 2014 polls but in Opposition-ruled states like Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh which face Assembly polls soon.