Divided NAC finalises food security draft

The Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council (NAC) has proposed subsidised foodgrains to 75% Indians (about 900 million) in phases, beginning next April, in a draft of the National Food Security Bill.

Updated on: Oct 23, 2010, 23:48:12 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council (NAC) has proposed subsidised foodgrains to 75% Indians (about 900 million) in phases, beginning next April, in a draft of the National Food Security Bill.

Jean Dreze, a socio-economist and NAC member, described the proposals as “disappointing” as they had failed to incorporate many elements of food security. “The NAC proposals are a great victory for the government,” Dreze said in his dissent note, accusing the council of succumbing to government pressure.

Abolishing the below poverty line criteria, the NAC has suggested two broad categories — priority and general —enabling 90% of the rural population and 50% of urban population to get subsdised foodgrains by 2014, when India’s population is estimated to be around 1.2 billion. The first phase will cover 85% of the rural and 40% of urban population from next April.

The formulation was approved after taking views of Planning Commission and ministries of women and child development, food and urban development and poverty alleviation. The final decision will be taken on basis of a note to be prepared by the food ministry.

As per the recommendations, a family in the priority sector would get up to 35 kg of foodgrains (or seven kg per person) per month with a subsidised price of R3 for rice, R2 for wheat and R1 for millet.

The general category family would be entitled to get up to 20 kg of food grains (or four kg per person) per month at a price not exceeding 50 per cent of the maximum support price. This will mean a kg of rice will cost R7.75 and wheat R5.50.

“The NAC-approved formulation is very clumsy and unwieldy,” said Biraj Pathnaik, principal advisor to the office of SC-appointed food commissioners. Food commissioners NC Saxena and Harsh Mander are also members of the NAC. Pathnaik and Dreze said the recommendation does not include child development services and old age pensions.

Narendra Jhadav, a NAC member, described the decision as historic and said council had provided “broad parameters” for the new law to cover over 75% of the population. The NAC, however, left the decision to differentiate between priority and general category and method of disbursement of subsdised foodgrains to the government.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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