[Reader-list] RTF (Right to Food) Articles - 4

Rakesh Iyer rakesh.rnbdj at gmail.com
Sun Aug 2 16:02:17 IST 2009 

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Articles

* Right to food and public accountability *
By Jean Dreze

  IN THE month of October, Surguja district in Chhatisgarh looks like a land
of milk and honey. Endless waves of green fields, lush forests and clear
streams give an impression of natural abundance. These delightful
surroundings, however, hide a harsh struggle for survival. Yields are low in
Surguja, and most farmers are unable to grow enough food to cover their
subsistence needs. When food runs out, they have to migrate in search of
work. Those who are unable to migrate try to make ends meet by keeping a few
animals, selling wood or collecting tendu and other minor forest products.
Hunger is widespread, and so are basic diseases such as gastro-enteritis,
which caused hundreds of deaths in Wadroffnagar block last August.

The dismal record of development programmes in the district bears some
responsibility for this state of affairs. It would be an exaggeration to say
that all these programmes have ``failed''. Examples of useful interventions
include the installation of handpumps in many hamlets, state purchases of
tendu at subsidised rates, and a major expansion of school facilities.
However, these are islands of relative success in a sea of inefficiency,
corruption and exploitation. Even though large sums have been spent on
development schemes, most villages in Surguja are still deprived of basic
facilities such as a decent approach road, a health centre or electricity.

The public distribution system (PDS) fits into this broader pattern of
dismal basic services, rooted in a breakdown of public accountability. A
brief reconnaissance of Wadroffnagar block suggests that the PDS is
virtually non-functional in this area. In village after village, ration
cards are full of blank entries. The main reason seems to be that the poor
are unable to overcome all the hurdles that prevent them from drawing their
rations. Consider Jhapar, a tribal village near the Uttar Pradesh border. It
takes about three hours to walk from there to the local ration shop, 12 km
away. The shop opens only two or three days each month (in September, it was
open for one day only). The opening times are arbitrary and unpredictable.
When word reaches Jhapar that grain is being distributed, eligible
households have to rustle up enough cash to buy their monthly quota of rice
- about Rs. 130, not a small amount in this subsistence economy. For most
people in Jhapar, producing this sum at short notice is very difficult.
Among those who are able to spare the cash, and also to spend a day walking
to the ration shop and back, some find the shop closed, others are told it
has ``run out'' of rice. Few households succeed in reaching the end of this
obstacle course. Most people are reconciled to the fact that it is futile to
expect anything from this rigmarole. They know they are being short-changed,
but feel little can be done about it. As one resident aptly commented,
``Hamaree baat koi naheen manega. Ham log lathi chalane wale naheen hai,
(nobody is going to listen to us, we are not the sort to wield lathis).''

Many of these hurdles arise from the fact that the ration-shop dealer has a
strong incentive to prevent his customers from buying their ration, and to
sell the grain on the open market. In disadvantaged areas such as
Wadroffnagar, the public simply does not have enough clout to resist this
fraud. Many people do not even know their entitlements. In some villages,
for instance, they have been told that the monthly quota is only 10 kg, as
against the official norm of 20 kg.

In the larger villages on the main road to Ambikapur (the district
headquarters), the situation is different. Here people know their
entitlements, and they have means of keeping the local dealer on his toes,
for instance through elected representatives or ``vigilance committees''. As
a result, offtake from the ration shops is much higher. In fact, the dealers
bitterly complain that the public does not ``allow'' them to sell on the
black market, making the entire business unviable. Indeed, the official
``commissions'' are insufficient to cover operational costs (including
customary bribes at the FCI godowns). The local dealers envy their
counterparts in remote areas, who are able to fleece the public without
encountering much resistance.

The whole system looks like it has been designed to fail. Given the
inadequacy of official commissions, only those who have enough clout to
resist public scrutiny and sell on the black market are likely to bid for
ration-shop licences. And once corrupt dealers are in control of the
licences, the door is wide open for large-scale diversion of PDS grain to
the black market. According to a dealer who spoke openly, barely 25 per cent
of the food lifted from FCI godowns in Surguja reaches the intended
households.

Surguja's experience suggests that the PDS is in urgent need of drastic
reform, with a special focus on public accountability. Various steps could
be taken to improve accountability levels. First, better use can be made of
both carrot and stick in handling the ration-shop dealers. Their commissions
should be raised, making it possible for them to work honestly, and
conditional on that, firm action should be taken against corrupt dealers.
Second, gram panchayats and gram sabhas should be empowered to appoint and
dismiss ration-shop operators. In Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh, the
devolution of supervisory powers to panchayati raj institutions has been
used with good effect in other contexts, and this approach can perhaps be
extended to the PDS. Third, in areas such as Surguja, there is a strong case
for abolishing the distinction between BPL (below poverty line) and non-BPL
households. Aside from creating artificial social divisions in the villages,
this distinction has undermined public pressure for an improved PDS (since
non-BPL households no longer have a stake in it), without achieving much in
terms of cutting costs. Last but not least, the right to food calls for
greater attention from popular organisations and social movements. There is
little hope of radical change based on Government initiatives alone.

It is perhaps not far-fetched to think that the right to food provides an
ideal focus of popular mobilisation at this time of unprecedented hunger
amidst plenty. In Wadroffnagar, people were shocked to hear that food
mountains were lying idle in FCI godowns across the country (and even in
Wadroffnagar block itself). Even otherwise, there is a strong undercurrent
of resentment about the rampant exploitation of local communities at the
hands of babus and sahukars, of which the breakdown of the PDS is one
manifestation. Efforts to translate this resentment into constructive action
are likely to be rewarding. A good example of the galvanising effects of
public accountability came up in Raghunathnagar, the site of last August's
gastro-enteritis epidemic. After this incident, which caused a public
uproar, the local health centre was promptly revamped. Now there are
qualified doctors, plenty of medicines, and feverish activity - the best
health outpost I have seen. It is a pity this metamorphosis happened only
after a wave of deaths.

Perhaps the most effective means of banishing hunger and starvation from
Surguja is an employment guarantee programme. Even a limited guarantee
(restricted, say, to the lean season) could go a long way in this respect.
The country's gigantic food stocks have made such programmes more affordable
than ever, and there is no dearth of opportunities for labour-intensive
public works in this area. In this connection, it was sobering to find that
most villages in Wadroffnagar had not seen any relief works for many years.
This year, no relief works had been organised in any of the villages we
visited, except Pandari where makeshift work took place for five days
shortly before the Chief Minister's visit last August. Even in Pandari, not
a single labourer has been paid to date. It is a cruel irony that in the
name of ``relief'' people are being made to work without payment, like
slaves. Here again, lack of public accountability is the key issue.

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