 "K V Thomas & Ajay Maken")
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 due to the “negligible burden of Rs 23,800 crore” on the exchequer, the “fiscal deficit will not be impacted in any way.” The Ordinance was formally promulgated later in the evening.
Politically the party acknowledges that the “number game” will have to be worked out on the floor of the Parliament itself when the Ordinance is put up for vote in the upcoming Monsoon session. The Samajwadi Party which renders outside support to the government is firmly opposed to the bill.
Attempting to quell the many questions that have dogged the bill, Ajay Maken who addressed the media today stated that storage that issues such as financial impact, storage capacity, eventualities like drought, famine etc, have all been looked into and addressed within the bill.
The bill which is aimed at covering 67 per cent of the population and entail a burden of Rs 1,24,723 crores on the exchequer will need 61.2 million metric tonnes of food grain to be lifted.
Food minister KV Thomas assured that present procurement is of 60.2 million metric tones and the storage capacity has been enhanced from 55 million metric tones to 78 million metric tones at present, so there is “no cause for concern.”
As for “eventualities”, (a concern that had been flagged off by Agriculture minister and NCP chief Sharad Pawar), the Food minister said that only on such eventualities would beneficiaries be given cash allowances.
Responding to SP’s attack on the Food bill as “anti-farmer”, the Congress from its official platform today announced that the food subsify bill in the past four years had gone up five times from Rs 25,181 crore ( 2004) to Rs 1,24,723 crore and would only help the farmer. The MSP too had been hiked exponentially over the past four years benefiting the farmers.
Dismissing the attack by Opposition political parties that it was nothing less than a a “poll gimmick for a beleaguered Congress party,” Maken said "This ( Food bill) may be a life saver, life changer for many people.... So delay even by a single minute or day, God knows how many lives it could cost.”
The party however admitted that it will take at least six months for people to feel the impact of the measure and its thorough implementation. While the SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has gone on record to state that this signifies early polls, Congress party leaders reject this saying early elections make no sense now.
Congress insiders see that 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 sates like Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh which face Assembly polls.
The Ordinance the Congress insists is just a method of translating its 2009 manifesto commitment to the people into reality.
