What should be more important for the Government and the politicians is the real “thought for food” for the common man while they themselves enjoy enough “food for thought”.

The piece of draft legislation, the National Food Security Bill - 2013, stipulates to dole out subsidised wheat at Rs 3 a kg, rice at Rs 2 a kg and coarse cereals at Rs 1 a kg to 75 per cent of the rural population and 50 per cent of the urban population. The Bill says that every identified poor will get 5 kg of food grains a month and the poorest of the poor under the Antyodaya Anna Scheme will continue to get 35 kg of food grains per household per month.

The basic question is – has the Government identified the “poor”? Based on the Tendulkar methodology, the Planning Commission has claimed that the poverty ratio in the country has come down from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10. This claim was severely contested and as a result the Government had to appoint an expert panel under the chairmanship of C Rangarajan to review the estimates. Ragarajan, who is also the Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, is yet to submit his panel’s report.

Without waiting for the proper identification of the poor, Bill claims to cover 75 per cent of the rural population and 50 per cent of the urban population. It further says that the central government will determine the percentage coverage of the beneficiaries and accordingly state governments will identify these beneficiaries.

The motive of the central government is not clear. It has been guilty of fudging poverty ratio that would amount to excluding a large number of beneficiaries. While the World Bank report says that India now has a greater share of the world’s poorest than it did 30 years ago, the government on the contrary claims the poverty ratio in the country has been reduced. According to the World Bank, India accounts for one-third of world’s poorest people.

With a view to justify its claim, the Planning Commission set the poverty line at the daily expenditure at Rs 32 in urban areas and Rs 26 in rural areas on food, education and health. It further reduced the poverty line to Rs 28.65 per capita daily consumption in cities and Rs 22.42 in rural areas. Without waiting for the Rangarajan panel report, the government is adamant in claims of poverty reduction by nearly three times under the Congress-led UPA coalition rule since 2004-05 compared to 11 years before based on the contested Tendulkar formula. Even ridiculous statements have been made from time to time about survival on Rs 15 per day and a responsible minister claiming meals available at Rs 1.

In 2006, the Arjun Sengupta panel report has said that more than 85 per cent of workers in organised sector and more than 78 per cent of workers in the unorganised sector live with income of less than Rs 20 a day. The Government claims to have created wonders by fudging the poverty ratio within a period of 7 years.

Doctoring poverty ratio will not help in boosting the image of the Government. On nutritional aspect and mother’s healthcare, India’s report card is poor. The State of the World’s Mother’s Report-2013 says that India has the highest number of deaths of newborns on the first day of life, estimated at 309,000. UNICEF report says India has 43 per cent of underweight children in the age group 0-5 years, which is much higher than the average in sub-Saharan Africa at 21 per cent. According to Government’s estimates, about 56,000 maternal deaths were recorded in 2008 and 11.64 lakh infant deaths occurred in 2011. Neo-natal mortality rate was 31 per 1000 live births in 2011 indicating deaths of 3.1 per cent newborn babies within first month of their birth.

Rendering food security is a laudable measure, but the government needs to rightly estimate the eligible beneficiaries. Nutritional food like pulses, vegetables and cooking oil should be supplied to the poor at subsidised rates apart from rice, wheat and pulses. On the lines of mid-day meals for school children, provision for community kitchen should be made for the homeless and destitute.

The Bill has proposed no serious measures for restructuring the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and the public distribution system (PDS). Procurement of grains should be done all over the country, at the level of cluster of villages. The FCI should set up grain banks at cluster of villages to procure grains from farmers at minimum support prices (MSPs). The grains procured by the grain banks should be stored and distributed to the beneficiaries. If there is shortage in procurement, food grains procured by nearby grain banks can be transported at minimum cost. Such a really decentralised structure of procurement and disbursement will greatly reduce the huge storage and transportation costs and wastage, which the FCI is presently incurring. Local self-government bodies like panchayats and zilla parishads can be roped in for managing grain banks.

The local grain bank system of procurement, storage and disbursement will not only reduce transportation costs, but will encourage farmers in the area to produce more as they will be assured of immediate procurement by the grain banks. Wheat procurement can be the only exception as it is not grown in most parts of the country. In this case, the FCI should take the responsibility of transporting wheat from surplus areas to the grain banks.

In the interest of food security, the Government should reverse its policy of acquiring farmland for non-agricultural purposes, particularly for corporate houses and unwarranted urbanisation. Land may be acquired for essential public services.

Finally, the Bill should incorporate more “thought for food” by suggesting measures to bring in more land under agriculture as Brazil has done, incentivise farmers for producing more and assuring procurement of his produces by local grain banks. (IPA Service)