Non-poor out of food security law

The proposed National Food Security law is likely to ensure food grains for poor, destitute and street people. Those defined as non-poor by the Planning Commission will be kept out of the ambit of the law, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 16, 2010, 24:01:54 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The proposed National Food Security law is likely to ensure food grains for poor, destitute and street people. Those defined as non-poor by the Planning Commission will be kept out of the ambit of the law.

In a bid to keep fiscal deficit within manageable limits, an Empowered Group of Ministers at a meeting last Friday — held after a gap of nearly four months — has reportedly agreed to a Food ministry proposal that those above poverty line should not be covered under the proposed law. Just 27.5 per cent of India’s population is estimated to be poor.

The food ministry had estimated that the cost of ensuring minimum 25 kg of food grains at subsidised cost to all Indians would mean a burden of Rs 1,00,000 crore to India.

“Such a move will be bad for fiscal management,” said a government official. The Central government fiscal deficit for 2009-10 was 6.8 per cent, which the government aims to bring down to less than six per cent in the next budget.

The eGoM has agreed with the ministry’s proposal to continue with the existing status of the Antyodyaya Anna Yojana, in which 35 kg of rice or wheat is provided to the poorest among the poor at a rate of Rs 2 per kg.

Even bringing orphans and street children under the ambit of the proposed law was being considered through welfare institutions of the state governments, an official said. They are not entitled to subsidized food grains under the existing Public Distribution System.

To end the unending dispute over number of poor, the ministry had proposed the law should bind state governments to accept Planning Commission’s poverty figures.

The ministry has also proposed that the poverty estimates should be reviewed every five years considered the projected population figures provided by the Registrar General of India. Apart from that, the ground level surveys to identify the poor should be uniform all over India.

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

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.