[Reader-list] RTF (Right to Food) Articles - 7

[Rakesh Iyer]

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*FOOD SECURITY*

* Food for all *

SUKUMAR MURALIDHARAN

* The right-to-food campaign gets a fillip with the Common Minimum Programme
of the new government incorporating far-reaching commitments on food
security and the evolving constitutional doctrine that public welfare is a
core obligation of the state. *

 IT could be coincidence. Or it could be the case that committed public
interventions cannot for long be denied the political recognition that is
their due.

 V.V. KRISHNAN

* Mid-day meal at school in Orissa's Bolangir district. *

 The Common Minimum Programme of the newly installed coalition government
headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh incorporates many far-reaching
commitments on food security and child welfare. These are, in some measure,
the recycling of older themes in social welfare policy, without a mention of
the history of default on commitments given earlier. But there is a distinct
change in the context. Quite apart from the pressure of public expectations,
inherent in the mandate for change given in the last general elections,
there is a perceptible shift under way in constitutional doctrine. Public
welfare is now increasingly perceived not as an activity that the state can
indulge in if it has the time and the resources left over from other
essential activities. It is rather, increasingly being interpreted as part
of the core obligations of the state.

The CMP's commitments on nutrition and child welfare in fact, go no further
than the obligations that have been enjoined on the state - as part of its
constitutional duties - by the Supreme Court. This shift in doctrine - this
elaboration of the scope of judicial scrutiny over the state's guardianship
of the Fundamental Rights - has taken place in part, as a consequence of
spirited public interventions at various levels, collectively known as the
"right-to-food campaign".

THE right-to-food (or RTF) campaign was formally launched in 2001 with an
innovative mix of strategies, merging streams of social activism that had
produced positive results in their own domains. The campaign depended in
part on formally petitioning the judiciary for the enforcement of the right
of every Indian to adequate nourishment. In this, it was inspired by
preceding rulings of the highest court, which held that in cases of
Fundamental Rights, it was willing to give little latitude to governmental
pleas of financial stringency. Another tack that the RTF campaign adopted
was awareness building, to bring moral pressure to bear on the
administration at its interface with the people most vulnerable to food
insecurity. Typically, the method employed - borrowed from the closely
related campaign on the right to information - was the "jan sunwai" or
public hearing, at which official claims of funds disbursement and assets
creation were matched against the realities perceived by the supposed
beneficiaries.

A number of hearings of the RTF petition have been held in the Supreme Court
since July 2001 and a series of orders of far-reaching significance issued.
In November 2001, the Supreme Court directed all States to introduce a
mid-day meal scheme (MDMS) for students in government and government-aided
schools. It also ordered that the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS)
which was patchy and extremely selective in its coverage, be extended to
provide universal coverage for all children below the age of six. From
figures that had been submitted by commissioners appointed to assist in its
deliberations, the Supreme Court concluded that at the minimum, this
required that the number of anganwadi centres administering the ICDS needed
to be increased from 600,000 to 1.4 million.

Interestingly, the CMP incorporates some of the language of the Supreme
Court's recent orders without specific acknowledgment. "A national cooked
nutritious mid-day meal scheme, funded mainly by the Central government," it
promises, "will be introduced in primary and secondary schools." Also on the
agenda is the "universalisation" of the ICDS, and the provision of "a
functional anganwadi in every settlement (to) ensure full coverage for all
children".

If the Supreme Court's orders since November 2001 are considered, the
Central government would have no alibi for inaction on these two fronts,
least of all the plea of financial stringency. According to commissioners
appointed by the court, the Department of Women and Child Welfare (DWCW) in
the Central government, has maintained that it would not be able to comply
with the directive of the Supreme Court on this precise account. The number
of functional anganwadi centres fell far short of the ICDS norm of one for a
population of 1,000 (or 700 in the case of tribal areas). Correspondingly,
the number of children theoretically covered was 34 million, against the
total target population of 150 million. The actual coverage in fact, fell
far short because of multiple leakages of resources from the system. In the
estimation of the commissioners, no more than 26 million children are at
present gaining the benefits of the ICDS.

In response to queries from the commissioners, the DWCW had, as recently as
November 2003, clarified that it was inclined to view the Supreme Court
order "within the present guidelines, which apply to specific project
areas". Universal coverage of all "settlements" was not conceived of, in
part because the term "settlements" was not recognised within the
guidelines. Far from expanding the number of anganwadi centres, the DWCW
could only think of making the "existing and sanctioned centres" operational
over time.

It is significant that these pleas of incapacity and inability from the
government have been replaced by the seemingly firm resolve of the CMP and
the quite transparent adoption of the Supreme Court's nomenclature on
implementing the ICDS in all "settlements". In a report submitted last
February, the commissioners had in fact sought an explicit clarification
that the term "settlement" referred to "a cluster of households within a
village". In other words, a specific caveat was to be issued disallowing the
DWCW plan to confine the nutrition scheme to children within the catchment
zone of existing centres.

IN April, the Supreme Court revisited all the orders it had issued in
response to the RTF petitions. It noted that the ICDS was "perhaps the
largest of all the food supplementation programmes in the world". The
scheme, though "elaborate", needed to be expanded considerably "to ensure
that nutritious food reaches all those who are undernourished or
malnourished". It directed the Central government to "file within three
months, an affidavit stating the period within which it proposes to increase
the number of anganwadi centres" so that coverage is extended to all the
intended beneficiaries. The new government clearly has little time to waste
between the adoption of the CMP and the actual provision of funds to back up
its declared intentions on child nutrition and welfare.

The Supreme Court also recorded with anguish that several States had simply
not introduced the MDMS. Several others had introduced it in a token or
cursory fashion; while others still had hedged it around with so many
conditions as to make it of limited practical value. Specific mention was
made of Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, though according to the February
report of the commissioners, Assam and Haryana also have failed to make even
a beginning in providing mid-day meals. The court was also informed that
several States - including Arunachal Pradesh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh,
Meghalaya, Mizoram, Orissa, Punjab, West Bengal and Uttaranchal - had made
only very meagre provisions. Complaints that parents were being asked for
cash payments to meet a part of the costs were recorded in the case of
Maharashtra and Mizoram. And from Rajasthan, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh came
reports of caste discrimination in the appointment of Dalits as cooks.

Taking on board all these concerns, a Supreme Court bench comprising
Justices Y.K. Sabharwal and B.N. Agrawal has directed all States that have
not complied with the November 2001 order to do so "not later than September
1, 2004". Compliance reports in this connection have been called for from
the Chief Secretaries of all States and administrators of all Union
territories by September 15. Costs should not under any circumstances, be
recovered from the parents of the children. And in the appointment of cooks
and helpers, preference was to be given to Dalit communities and the
Scheduled Tribes.

Responsibility for financing the MDMS now is equally shared between the
Centre and the States. The Supreme Court has now clarified that the funding
for construction of kitchen sheds and for conversion of foodgrain into
cooked meals should be borne by the Centre.

The Central government would also have to meet certain strict performance
norms in various other of its welfare schemes, notably the Sampoorna Grameen
Rozgar Yojana (SGRY) and the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY). In all these
respects, the orders issued by the Supreme Court are very specific and
moulded in accordance with inputs received from the commissioners on
infirmities in the implementation of these programmes. There has also been
in the case of the SGRY, an order requiring the doubling of both foodgrain
and cash allocations for the financial year 2004-05. And in the case of the
AAY, the requirement that a poverty certificate (the so-called "below
poverty line" or BPL card) be produced as a qualifying requirement has been
deemed unfair.

In all these respects, the stated intentions of the CMP do not conflict with
the requirements of food and nutrition security as spelt out by the highest
court. Reflecting its awareness of the current status of the RTF campaign,
for instance, the CMP has promised that "Antyodaya cards for all households
at risk of hunger will be introduced". Similarly, without going into
specific figures, it has held out the assurance that "public investment in
agricultural research and extension, rural infrastructure and irrigation
(will be) stepped up in a significant manner at the very earliest". Doubling
the allocation of foodgrain and cash for rural employment - in accordance
with the Supreme Court directive - could be one method of fulfilling this
promise.

Yet with all the promises that it makes, the CMP does seek an escape clause.
While setting a three-month deadline for the government to work out a
"comprehensive medium-term strategy for food and nutrition security", the
CMP does qualify the objective of achieving "universal food security" with
the feasibility imperative. But if the trend of judicial hearings in the RTF
petition are any indication, this plea may not cut much ice. Earlier
pronouncements by the Supreme Court have already ordained that the
government should "cut the flab" elsewhere to fund its essential welfare
commitments. In preparing its first Budget, the Congress-led coalition
government at the Centre would need not merely to take into account fiscal
stability, but also the new doctrine of judicial scrutiny over its
guardianship of the Fundamental Rights.

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