Food security eludes destitutes

The National Food Security Ordinance might not exactly be the panacea as it is made out to be. It turns out what UPA managers call a “game-changer” would not provide food security to the most marginalised and deprived sections. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jul 9, 2013, 02:19:13 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The National Food Security Ordinance might not exactly be the panacea as it is made out to be. It turns out what UPA managers call a “game-changer” would not provide food security to the most marginalised and deprived sections.

Even though the original draft of the food security bill that was tabled in Parliament had a chapter targeting food deprived sections of people and detailed provisions on ensuring food for them, the Ordinance notified by President Pranab Mukherjee last week, surprisingly, has none.

No more will the food security law ensure that people encountering natural disasters, such as the June 16 flash floods in Uttarakhand, get food support from the government in time. And neither will it be mandatory for the government to provide cooked meals through community kitchens to the people on street.

The draft bill had provisioned for kitchens in urban areas and additional foodgrain for the destitute.

But, the Ordinance, which talks of tackling child malnutrition by giving them an additional take-home ration accounting for 800 calories of energy, is silent on feeding scores of children living on the streets.

Delhi alone accounts for around five lakh homeless children.

“It is disappointing to find that the provisions for the most marginalised people have been knocked off by the government,” said Biraj Patnaik, special adviser in the office of Supreme Court-appointed food commissioners.

“This, despite the provisions being there in the bill presented before Parliament.”

Furthermore, if someone thought that those covered under the public distribution system will get food at new rates of R1-3, they were mistaken.

The law provides for identifying such beneficiaries afresh in six months, or more if needed. “The law could have been immediately implemented if the government had agreed to provide foodgrain at reduced prices to the existing BPL and Antyodaya beneficiaries. Postponing delivery till such time that the identification of poor is conducted could lead to the food security law getting off the ground only post-2014,” Patnaik said.

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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