 "Special House session on Food Security Bill likely")
Those in know of the development revealed that the Cabinet note on the ordinance had already been issued but when the item itself came up in the meeting, Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth said "deferred".
Evidently, the disagreements over the bill had surfaced before the Cabinet meeting and the decision was taken to postpone it. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) head and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar among others are stated to be opposed to the ordinance route for food security.
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The ordinance was to be tabled in the Cabinet last week, but it did not even find a mention in the meeting then.
The ruling coalition, however, kept an option of the ordinance still open, while also annoucing that its four ministers--finance minister P Chidambaram, home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, parliamentary affairs minister Kamal Nath and food minister K V Thomas --will evolve a consensus among political parties to convene a special session of Parliament to take up NFSB. The Bill is already pending in Parliament and could not be taken up due to pandemonium over various scams in the last session.
As the ruling coalition talked of building a consensus, Gujarat chief minister and head of BJP's poll panel Narendra Modi accused the government of adding insult to injury of the common man who is already paying hefty prices for food.
Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Chidambaram said if the support from the Opposition parties is "forthcoming" then the food bill will be passed in a special session of Parliament.
"Based on the response of the main Opposition, we will have to take a view. Our intention is to get it (Food Bill) passed in a special session of Parliament and we are making one more effort to ask the Opposition parties to support us," the Minister said.
Meanwhile, the newly appointed BJP poll panel chief wrote on Twitter," The Congress government at Delhi (Centre) is rubbing salt on the wounds of people battling with price hike."
Yesterday, Thomas had said all UPA allies, including NCP, are on board and there was a consensus on issuing an ordinance.
The Bill-- it has undergone numerous changes ever since it was first tabled in Parliament on December 2011 –will provide 5 kilograms of either wheat or rice or coarse cereals per person per month at Rs 3 per kilogram for rice, Rs 2 per kilogram for wheat and Rs 1 per kilogram for coarse cereals.
Besides, the Bill will provide legal entitlement for subsidized grains or allowance to a host of other sections of the population like pregnant women, children and also poorest among the poor households, who would get 35 kilograms of grains per month at a discounted price.
The bill will require an annual food subsidy of almost Rs 1,31,000 crore, which includes almost Rs 8,000 crore for other incidental expenditures like setting up National and State-Level Food Commissions and grievance redressal mechanisms.
In, 2013-14 Union Budget, the government allocated Rs 90,000 crore as food subsidy, of which Rs 10,000 crore was solely on account of the Bill.
Of course, the subsidy burden will escalate as and when the Bill is implemented across the country. This may also be due to the fact that Minimum Support Price of wheat and rice will have to increase to provide remunerative price to farmers, while the sale price will be much lower and flat for at least 3 years.