NAC RECOMMENDATIONS ON FOOD SECURITY BILL

Legalising Injustice

Brinda Karat

A fortnight before the national advisory council finalised its recommendations for the food security bill, the global hunger index report 2010 placed India in the range of countries that have an “alarming level of hunger” ranking it 67^th out of 84 developing countries, a worse record than countries like Rwanda and Sudan. But this reality did not seem to have had much influence on the Sonia Gandhi headed national advisory council. The finalised recommendations fall far short of what is required to ensure a legal framework for food security but of even more concern is that in some respects the recommendations, through omissions and commissions do more damage than good. The core of this is the NAC stamp of approval on the failed and discredited system of targeting and the rejection of a universal system of public distribution. If accepted henceforth India by law will not have a universal public distribution system. This leads to the next logical step which the NAC has indeed taken of keeping intact as the basis of the food security law the fraudulent framework of policies related to estimation, identification and allocation of quotas for below poverty line families. The NAC recommendations go a step further by creating potential new conflicts and divisions among those with equally high stakes in food security. Thus a council with a declared mandate to “advise” the government has instead accepted the anti-poor advice of the government on this crucial issue of food security. As a bonus to the government it has further tried to make that advice palatable to the public by a dexterity in the use of words to conceal the actual import of the recommendations. It is equally unfortunate that with the exception of economist Jean Dreze who has given a note of dissent, the other members on the panel, many of whom, like Dreze have been leading votaries in the right to food campaign have compromised on the basic and fundamental requirements for food security.

The recommendations are as follows: (1) The targeting system will continue but under novel names. Thus the BPL families become priority sections (PS) and the APL are named general sections. (2) The numbers of PS will constitute 46 per cent in rural India and 28 per cent in urban areas (3) The general category will constitute 44 per cent in rural areas and 22 per cent in urban areas (4) It is left to the government to specify the criteria for inclusion in PS and general (5) Statewise rural coverage will be adjusted on the basis of planning commission’s 2004-2005 poverty estimates (6) PS sections will be entitled to 35 kilograms of foodgrains, at the price of three rupees for one kilo of rice, two rupees for one kilo of wheat. Millets will cost one rupee a kilo. (7) The general sections will be entitled to 20 kgs at a price not exceeding 50 per cent of the minimum support price for millets, wheat and rice. (8) The legal entitlement will be implemented in a phased manner.

LEGAL

SANCTION

The NAC has acquiesced to the fraud perpetrated by the central government through the planning commission that decisions of numbers to be covered by food subsidies have nothing to do with the actual numbers of those in need of food subsidies but everything to do with the amount of resources to be allotted. The country has been subjected to widely differing estimates of poverty ranging from the 27 per cent of the planning commission poverty estimates of 2003-2004 to 37 per cent by the Tendulkar Committee; 50 per cent by the Saxena Committee based on vulnerable social groups; to 70 per cent based on a 100 rupee daily income line by the Wadhwa Committee; 77 per cent by the Arjun Sengupta Committee based on the numbers of people who cannot spend more than twenty rupees a day. The NAC accepted none of these estimates but came up with a new figure. The first question is on what basis did the NAC decide the percentages for BPL families in rural and urban areas? There is no rationale behind the percentages they have chosen. The NAC has just tweaked the Tendulkar Committee figures from 37 per cent to a few percentage points higher but they have left the questionable methods and policies for poverty estimation intact. Other aspects include:

1. The linkage of centrally decided poverty estimates with actual quotas for the states has excluded large sections of the poor from benefits since there is a wide gap between the estimate and the actual identification. Instead of breaking this linkage, the NAC wants to import this linkage into the food security law giving it legal sanction. Thus the practice of arbitrarily decided quotas handed out to the states, is replicated in the NAC recommendation of a particular percentage being handed out to the states as the basis for the law. The law to be just should give a greater role to state governments in estimation and criteria for identification.

2. At present poverty estimates when translated into quotas are not on current but on old population figures. Today 36 per cent of the population are recognised by the central government as being eligible for BPL cards. Forget that this figure is based on wrong estimates of the planning commission. Even if we accept the assessment of 36 per cent, on 2010 population figures this should work out to around 7.70 crore households. Instead of this only 6.52 crores families are recognised. Why is this? Simply because in yet another fraud the planning commission uses old population figures in this case 2000 figures extrapolated from the 1991 census. Secondly the adjustment to the increase in population is done only after ten years even though there are yearly estimates of increased population. Thus just on this count alone over a crore of families have been denied BPL benefits. On this aspect also the NAC accepts the highly unjust denial of regular population updates in calculations for the quotas. The NAC recommendation fixes the percentage without any recommendation of regular not decadal updating.

3. It suggests division of the quota to states on the basis of the admittedly dubious estimates of poverty of 2004-2005 which had changed the ranking of the states. By using these estimates it has given approval to the planning commission rankings which had been challenged by the states.

4. Even while accepting the targeted system, the NAC follows the present objectionable pattern of marginalising the role of state governments in definitions of poverty and criteria for the identification of the poor. On the contrary it has a specific recommendation which leaves that entirely in the jurisdiction of the central government.

REDUCTION IN

BPL NUMBERS

The NAC recommendations have to be compared not with what the curtailed and deeply eroded entitlements granted by the central government are, but what people in different states are actually entitled to because of the intervention of state governments. Food subsidies are not new rights being granted to the poor but have a historical background. However from the nineties, successive central governments instead of taking the initiative to enhance these rights, have pushed for the curtailment of these rights. But various state governments have tried in their own limited ways with limited resources to protect these rights. In this context, the NAC actually reduces the numbers.

The NAC recommendations translate into approximately 9 crore families to be covered under the BPL category. At present the central government provides 6.52 crore families in the country foodgrains at subsidised rates. However state governments have extended subsidies from their own limited resources to widen the food security net and have expanded this number to 11.04 crore families. This figure of 11 crores, as has been repeatedly stated by chief ministers, the most recent being at the national development council meeting, is on the basis of a partial acceptance of the numbers of poor identified in different states in house to house surveys which showed an even higher number. The first step the NAC should have recommended is for the centre to take the responsibility for at least these numbers. However there is a gap of around two crore families between the NAC recommendation and the present entitlement holders as identified by state governments. If the state governments were to accept the NAC recommendations then two crore families would lose their entitlements.

Further in at least 10 States present BPL card holders get rice at two rupees a kilo again because of state government subsidy. By raising the price from two rupees to three rupees, is the NAC enhancing or reducing food security?

With the huge stocks of foodgrains, the government emphasis on cutting out APL sections entirely from the food subsidy system had to be revised. Thus the planning commission in its note had said that while APL sections could be included there must be a price and quantity differential with the BPL. The NAC has stuck to this approach of the planning commission. While the NAC recommendations leave untouched the objectionable methods of estimation of BPL and APL, they recommend a reduced quantity of only 20 kg of foodgrains instead of 35 kgs to APL sections. While there are a host of steps required to strengthen foodgrains production including increase in government expenditure on rural infrastructure, the argument of non-availability of sufficient foodgrains is misleading. The availability is there, the government has to take the responsibility for expansion of procurement on the basis of a fair and acceptable price to farmers and a larger role for state governments. This is what the central government wants to avoid committed as it is to the free play of the market and a reduction in subsidies. It is not availability but the refusal to allocate sufficient resources which is the crux of the problem.

FORMULA FOR

PRICE RISE

Thus the NAC wants to legalise the division of the poor into APL and BPL. What is equally objectionable is the suggestion of the NAC to link APL prices with the minimum support price given to farmers. They recommend that the price of grain for APL sections should be 50 per cent of the MSP. Since the government refuses to control the impact of the continued increase in the prices of inputs for farming the cost of production constantly goes up. There is a constant battle by the farmers to get the government to increase MSP prices to a fair level. Although highly inadequate, the central government is forced to increase the MSP almost every year. The farmers commission headed by M S Swaminathan has in fact recommended a 50 per cent profit margin for farmers in the MSP with annual calculations of the increase in the cost of production. While at present the government because of protests and resistance has not been able to raise the central issue price of grains for the APL sections since 2002, the NAC has given them a readymade formula for an annual price increase in the foodgrains meant for the APL sections. The added bonus for the government being that this annual price increase determined by the annual price increase of MSP will now be legal.

By linking MSP hikes to hikes in the price of foodgrains for APL sections by law, the NAC recommendations pits one section of the working people against the other. APL consumers will be against the legitimate demands of farmers against MSP increases as they will see it as a burden on their own budgets. This strategy of the government long opposed by progressive movements, has been accepted by the NAC. Thus along with the divisions of the poor into APL and BPL we have been gifted with an area of potential conflict between different sections of the working people so that the government can go ahead and cut subsidies to both.

The claims about the NAC being the social conscience of this government lie deeply buried in the wholly unsatisfactory recommendations of the NAC on the food security bill. What is the use of a law that legalises discrimination, creates new divisions and conflicts, marginalises the role of state governments while maintaining the present unjust framework related to poverty estimation and identification?

We need to reiterate our demands for a just and full fledged food security act which must have at least the following features:

1. It should be a universal right with the elimination of APL and BPL categories or any other such nomenclature

2. It should guarantee at least 35 kg of foodgrains per nuclear family

3. The price of foodgrains must be fixed at two rupees a kilo. The choice should include millets (coarse grains)at one rupee a kilo which are a staple food in many parts of India and are highly nutritious.

4. It must have provisions to ensure food security to pre-school and school going children through a legal guarantee for mid-day meals and allocations for the ICDS