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

[Rakesh Iyer]

Link: http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/30/stories/2009063060470800.htm


*For inclusive approach to food security

*Brinda Karat * The proposed Food Security Act is flawed. The PDS should be
made universal, as it was prior to the targeted system introduced in the
1990s as part of the neo-liberal agenda. *

The President’s address to both Houses of Parliament included the promise of
a National Food Security Act. Every family below the poverty line, in the
rural and urban areas, will be legally entitled to 25 kg of rice or wheat a
month at Rs. 3 a kg. In the context of increasing hunger, with India listed
at a low 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s World Hunger Index of
88 countries, the need for a legally mandated food security framework is
imperative. But will the proposal benefit the food insecure?

According to current definitions of poverty, an estimated 6.5 crore families
are below the poverty line. Among them are 2.5 crore Antyodaya families,
considered the poorest among the poor and therefore eligible for additional
subsidies. Today an Antyodaya family is entitled to 35 kg of wheat at Rs. 2
a kg, paying Rs. 70 a month. If the Food Security Act is implemented, this
sum will rise to Rs.75 and the family will get 10 kg less of subsidised
foodgrain. To make up, it will have to buy 10 kg from the market. At the
current market rate of at least Rs. 12 a kg of wheat, this will mean Rs.120.


A BPL family’s ration bill for the 35 kg of wheat it is entitled to is today
around Rs. 157.50 at the average rate of Rs. 4.50 a kg. This includes the
cost the States add to the Central issue price of Rs. 4.15 a kg. Since the
Act proposes cutting the BPL quota by 10 kg, the benefits of lower prices
will be negative and families will end up spending Rs. 195 for the same
quantity of cereals.

If the National Food Security Act is implemented as conceptualised by the
Congress, it will be a cruel example of how the shallow rhetoric of
inclusive growth conceals the cutting back of even the inadequate food
entitlements the BPL and Antyodaya families get today. It has been assessed
that cutting the quotas will lead to a saving of approximately Rs.4,000
crore in the food subsidy bill.

Clearly, the current official thinking on the Act is flawed. First, the
allotment of 35 kg should not be cut to 25 kg. Secondly, Antyodaya families
that are receiving wheat at Rs. 2 a kg should continue to do so. Thirdly —
and this is the most crucial aspect — why should the government limit the
benefits of a mandated food security framework to those who have a BPL card?

It is well known and recognised, including in official reports, that the
targeted system of public distribution system has excluded large sections of
the poor from its purview. National Statistical Survey data from the 61st
Round shows that more than half of rural manual labourers, the section most
in need of subsidised food, do not have BPL cards. In Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh, such exclusion was 71 per cent and 73 per cent respectively.

One reason is the incorrect identification of the poor, with corruption
playing its role in the wrong distribution of BPL cards. The other, more
substantive, reason is the methodology used by the Planning Commission to
estimate poverty and the linking of subsidised food allocations to States
based on these estimates. The monetary equivalent of the poverty line in
India is just Rs.11.80 a day per adult in rural India and Rs. 17.80 a day
for urban areas. All others are considered “above poverty line.” Such an
absurd definition of poverty will obviously lead to massive exclusion.

For any food security framework to be beneficial, the current poverty
estimates have to be thrown out and a new framework accepted. It is reported
that the Tendulkar Committee set up for this purpose has finalised its
recommendations, which include an upward revision of rural poverty
estimates. This may result in a larger number of families in rural India
having access to subsidised foodgrains. That would be welcome. However,
since the vast majority of people find work in the unorganised sector with
wildly fluctuating incomes, accurate assessments of their food insecurity
are unlikely. The Arjun Sengupta Commission on the unorganised sector
assessed that 77 per cent of India’s adult population spent less than Rs. 20
a day. How can food requirements be met with such a low spending capacity?
Can an Act for food security ignore this reality?

The answer lies in delinking food allocations to the broad poverty estimates
done by the Planning Commission. For the last decade or so, the estimates of
poverty are translated into exact numbers of the poor and then divided into
units for food allocations. While broad strokes of poverty estimation are
certainly required to guide government policy, to link such estimates to
concrete numbers to decide food allocations is unjust and unfair. The
assessments of State governments such as Bihar and Bengal that have done
detailed house-to-house surveys put the number of those who require
subsidised foodgrains at 10.5 crore families. This is 40 per cent more than
the Planning Commission estimate. The proposed Food Security law ignores
these assessments and bases itself on the linkage of Planning Commission
estimates of poverty to legally recognised food rights.

The Central government must be sensitive to the fact that even as it delayed
such a legally required food security system in spite of the relentless
increase in the prices of foodgrains in the last five years, at least 10
State governments moved ahead to provide food security programmes, most of
them superior to the proposed law. Almost all the 10 States have increased
the numbers of those eligible for subsidised foodgrains by using their own
criteria, which are more inclusive than the criteria used by the Centre.
Chhattisgarh has included all tribal families and families headed by women.
Kerala has included all tribal and Dalit families and all families of
fisherpersons, apart from those chosen under nine core criteria.
Chhattisgarh provides 35 kg of foodgrains to 70 per cent of the population,
at Re. 1 kg for Antyodaya families and Rs.2 for the rest. Kerala provides 35
kg of rice per family at Rs. 2 a kg. Though the Central allocations of
subsidised foodgrains are for only 11 per cent of the population, Kerala has
used different criteria that ensure subsidised grain to 30 per cent. Andhra
Pradesh provides 80 per cent of the population rice at Rs. 2 a kg, six kg
per head depending on family size. Tamil Nadu has adopted a universal PDS
providing 16 to 20 kg of foodgrains at Re. 1 a kg to all families.

One of the main reasons for the growing food insecurity is that in the last
five years the Central government virtually excluded the entire “above
poverty line” families from the PDS. It also adopted new norms to justify
cuts in allocations to the States for Above Poverty Line (APL) quotas.
Between 2006 and 2008 the wheat quotas to APL were cut by over 73 per cent.
Thus, those States which started their food schemes after 2006 have had to
spend huge amounts from their budgets to help eliminate hunger. The Centre,
which has control over foodgrain allocations, shifted a big part of the
burden on to States, which are themselves facing a resource crunch. As an
immediate measure towards food security and to ensure the sustainability of
State schemes, the Centre should restore cuts in allocations to the States
at subsidised prices. The government has stocks well above the buffer stock
norms.

The key to an inclusive approach to food security is to make the system
universal as it was prior to the targeted system introduced in the 1990s as
part of the neo-liberal agenda. The advantages of a universal system are
well documented in India. There is little doubt that the errors of exclusion
of the deserving far outnumber the errors of inclusion of the undeserving.
If a universal system at BPL prices including an expanded Antyodaya segment
is adopted, it will, according to estimates made by eminent economists,
amount to around 1.6 per cent of GDP. Considering that in the last five
years the annual revenue foregone in tax concessions to corporates was much
higher than what it would cost for a universal PDS guaranteed by law, surely
the country can afford to take such a step to eliminate food insecurity and
hunger.

*(Brinda Karat is a member of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of
India (Marxist))*
* *