Govt finally tweaks food security bill

The UPA government has finally bowed to the demands of its ally Trinamool Congress and the Left parties to universalise the proposed food security law. Prime minister Manmohan Singh has ordered amendments to the proposed National Food Security Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha last December to avoid a rural-urban or income divide.

The current bill under consideration has specified categories getting food grains at different prices under the public distribution system (PDS): 7 kg per person per month to the priority households and 3 kg per person per month to the general category households.

The draft amendments rushed for the consideration of the parliamentary standing committee headed by Congress MP Vilas Mutemwar have given away the income criteria and now 5 kg food grain per person per month shall be allocated across the board, excluding the upper middle class and the rich paying income tax. The new proposal will entitle 67 per cent of the population to have a right to food at highly subsidised rate as against 63.5 per cent beneficiaries envisaged in the original bill. Consequently, the cost to the exchequer will rise to Rs 1.18 lakh crore from Rs 1.11 lakh crore in the original bill, while the amount of food grain distributed will go up to 62.5 million tonnes from 61 million tonnes.

The government wants to get the liberal bill passed and implemented by the time of the Union Budget in 2013 as it may become another poll plank for the Congress in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections like the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act that gave big dividends to the party in the 2009 elections.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Rahul Gandhi have been asking the government to put the food security on the fast-track. The Left parties also carried out a nationwide campaign for universal food security for five days last week. National Advisory Council members Aruna Roy and Jean Dreze had also expressed misgivings about the bill brought by the government last December.

Sources say the PM felt the original bill was flawed since it divides the country’s population into three groups making distribution work unmanageable and liable to another wave of corruption.  The three groups are – priority targets, who will get deeply subsidised seven kg of food grains (rice at Rs 3, wheat at Rs 2 and coarse grain at Re 1 per kg) per month per head, the general category getting lower entitlement of 3 kg per month per head at half the procurement price, and those totally excluded.