The Bill doesn’t address concerns about the fiscal burden and implementation. But, then, can India ignore widespread hunger?
T Nanda Kumar
Former Secretary, Agriculture and Food Ministry
“The biggest challenge in implementing the law will be proper identification of beneficiaries and effective delivery. Currently, there are huge vested interests along the whole chain”
The Food Security Bill, recently cleared by the Cabinet, is a decisive step in India’s fight against hunger and malnutrition. It is unacceptable that we have the world’s largest population of hungry and malnourished. Hunger and malnutrition are measured primarily by three parameters: inadequate access to food, stunted growth in children and infant mortality. Will this Act reduce these to much lower levels within a short span of time? There are challenges.
First, the money. The projected subsidy bill is Rs 1,00,000 crore a year. This will go up every year depending on the increase in the Minimum Support Prices. A minimum increase of 12 to 15 per cent per year should be factored in. This Act cannot deliver without cash being made available in time. There has to be a clear commitment that this money will be found within the budgetary resources and paid in time to procurement agencies. This implies that bold policy decisions have to be taken to reduce subsidies in other areas and move more projects to PPP mode.
Second, the grain. Procuring 61 to 62 million tonnes of foodgrain means adding 10 to 12 million tonnes to current procurement levels. The traditional strong states of Punjab, Haryana, Andhra and the new ones, Chhattisgarh and Orissa, cannot provide more. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal will have to step in. Are they ready? Can they produce enough surpluses to meet the increasing demand? Will there be enough investment in agriculture in these states to increase productivity manifold?
Third, impact on private trade. In a production scenario of about 100 million tonnes of rice and about 84 million tonnes of wheat, with about 65 per cent of production coming into the market, procurement of 62 million tonnes will not leave much space for private trade. What, then, happens to the private market for grain on which many depend? Squeezing the private trade is bound to push up food inflation and the government will be forced to release foodgrain from public stocks at a lower price, thereby starting a new spiral for additional procurement.
Fourth, delivery. The biggest challenge in the implementation of the Act will be proper identification of beneficiaries and effective delivery. Currently, there are huge vested interests along the whole chain. Major “surgical” interventions will be required to make the system work. This will include allowing innovations at the state government level and giving panchayats more powers and responsibility, including the power to appoint fair price shopkeepers and procuring foodgrain locally in a largely decentralised mode. All leakages, theft and diversion will have to be dealt with sternly and with well-defined punitive measures that allow no discretion. Full transparency in the selection of beneficiaries will have to be maintained. The system will have to be brought under the ambit of the Right to Information Act, the Comptroller & Auditor General and the Central Vigilance Commission (or Lok Pal) in addition to social audit.
Fifth, convergence with other programmes. The mid-day meal scheme, the scheme for pregnant and lactating mothers, Integrated Child Development Services, and health, water and sanitation programmes form important components of this initiative. While convergence of policy is easy at the national level, convergence of delivery at the district, block and panchayat levels will remain a challenge. Unless local government institutions and district authorities are empowered to administer these programmes and made responsible to achieve results, the effort could become futile.
Sixth, investing in agriculture. With this huge commitment for a cereal-based food security programme, there is a likelihood of neglecting agriculture. There can be no sustainable food security without sustainable agriculture. Investments in agriculture have to be increased and policy space provided for larger private investments.
Seventh, ensuring outcomes. What is the guarantee that after spending Rs 6,00,000 crore and after five years, India is not at the same level as today with 240 million hungry and malnourished people? To prevent this from happening, we need to put a big premium on performance. Performance will have to be measured on the impact in each region (on the same parameters as the hunger index) and non-performers must be penalised without exception.
The legislation is a small but significant step, but the task ahead is very difficult!
These views are personal
Kavita Srivastava
Activist, Right to Food campaign
“Whether India can afford to spend so much on food subsidies should be coupled with the question: can the state afford to leave a vast majority in hunger and starvation?”
The National Food Security Bill has been passed by the Cabinet and will soon be placed in Parliament. It is a massive step forward despite defects, and despite attacks from neo-liberal economists and the farmers’ lobby. The economists fear such subsidies when the economy is facing a slowdown. And farmers fear that the requirement of foodgrain for about 75 per cent of the population will kill the private trade.
These fears are highly misplaced, even as the fact remains that the Bill falls short of the expectations of the Right to Food Campaign in making food entitlements universal. For instance, we are against targeting because the last 15 years of targeting has only resulted in the exclusion of those who needed it most. So the present Bill falls short on this account.
The Bill also provides for a complicated three-tier system of targeting, some who will be excluded and some who will be in a “general” category (corresponding roughly to the old “Above Poverty Line” category) and others in “priority” (or the old Below Poverty Line category). These different groups of beneficiaries are being selected by an extremely complex socio-economic and caste census that is now underway.
The higher the number of deprivation scores a family gets, the greater the chances of it being selected as poor. This system is so complex that recent trials in Orissa, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh show how those who are extremely food-insecure, like single women, disabled people, and low-income earners like weavers found themselves with deprivation scores of zero or one, thereby reducing their chances of getting into the “priority category” referred to in the Bill. Thus, the framework of the Bill itself is extremely problematic in terms of who will be the beneficiaries of public distribution system or PDS.
Our campaign has also maintained that production, procurement and storage of food should be connected within the framework of the law. A strong and expanded PDS should be a win-win situation for both the farmers and the consumers. Our campaign strongly feels that the remunerative prices for the grain should cover the costs of cultivation unlike today when it is suppressed.
Thus, fixing the issue price for the “general” category as half the minimum support price (MSP) is something on which we do not agree since the government may want to suppress the MSP for the farmers in order to maybe keep the issue price low. MSP and issue prices in the PDS must not be connected. As the experience in Chhattisgarh has shown, ever since the PDS has become a near-universal scheme, the agriculture corporations have made improvements in the system of procurement.
The purpose of the Bill may be defeated, however, if food is substituted with cash on the plea that food can be diverted. Many states have shown that reforms have been possible and successful. Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh have used simple technological means to bring about radical systemic changes. For instance, using GPS on trucks that carry food and sending SMSs to consumers, connecting shops online, distributing the foodgrain in the presence of outside officials have all been simple mechanisms that have brought about dramatic changes in poor people’s access to the PDS.
It is pointed out that the Food Security Bill may cost close to Rs 1,00,000 crore. But the question of whether the state can afford to spend so much on food subsidies should be coupled with another question: can the state afford to leave a vast majority of its people in hunger, starvation and malnutrition even so many years after Independence? If starvation and malnutrition are a reality even today, then food as a right cannot be compromised at any cost. Despite a growth rate of 8.6 per cent, now down to seven per cent, India has not been able to bring down figures of anaemia, hunger and malnutrition among its people. We are still a nation in which one out of two children is malnourished and two out of three women are anaemic, and one out of three adults is malnourished.
This year, the government gave a tax exemption of Rs 4.6 lakh crore to industry. Last year, it was the same amount. Should the government also not use its power to ensure a hunger-free India?
The writer is also National Secretary, People’s Union for Civil Liberties
