VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
Last week, I was in Delhi to
attend a seminar on Food Security in which the model adopted by the Chhatisgarh
Government for almost eight years now stood out as a harbinger of change,
something which the other State Governments and the Centre need to learn from.
The State Government brought in
the Chhatisgarh Food Security Act much before the Centre thought of it and the
law was passed in the Assembly in December last year. The Government there did
its homework, prepared the ground, brought in the law only after eight years of
the model being implemented when it had already become a runaway success in
providing food to the needy all over the State by 7th of every month.
Most people outside Chhatisgarh
know the State more for the Maoist violence but few know the reasons why the
Raman Singh Government was voted for the second consecutive term and there is
little reason to suspect that it will not complete a hat trick in the Assembly
elections to be held later this year. Food Security is obviously one of the
main factors, even critic would concede.
Ahead of the Monsoon session of
Parliament which will debate the proposed Food Security Act for the country, I
fail to understand how it will be a game changer for the Congress the way NREGA
and loan waiver were in the 2009 Lok Sabha. Most of the States are implementing
various models of food security for the last several years offering rice at Rs
1, 2 or Rs 3 per kg. In fact, this has been the electoral agenda of Dravidian
parties for several decades now and also catapulted the charismatic NT Rama Rao
in power in Andhra Pradesh over 25 years ago.
Why will people vote for the
Congress in Chhatisgarh on this issue where food security is in place for the
last 8 years or in Tamil Nadu where it exists for the last four decades. In Punjab ,
the Akali Dal-BJP Government has put in place a roti-dal scheme in which 15
lakh families benefit, a figure which has now gone up to 30 lakh after the
Ordinance of the Central Government, covering 48 per cent of the population of
the State.
Though no one is opposing the
Food Security Act per se, State Governments are saying they already have a
better model firmly in place for years. Chhatisgarh of course has a model which
needs to be implemented and amended keeping in view the ground realities in
every State. Then you have the claim of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh
Badal that the Centre merely copied the food security ordinance from the
atta-dal scheme introduced by Akali Dal Government in 2007.
The Akali Dal leaders say that
the food security ordinance is a “vote security ordinance of the Congress and
just a political gimmick”. They are accusing the Congress of “trying to woo the
electorate in view of ensuing Lok Sabha polls with the half-baked food security
ordinance”. Other leaders in the State
say the scheme was not a realistic one. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J
Jayalalithaa has termed it as “food insecurity ordinance” suggesting several
amendments in her letter to the Prime Minister.
She suggested amending the Bill so that allocation of foodgrain to those
states that are implementing a public distribution system delivering a higher
level of coverage than the ordinance provides for is protected. She said due to the Ordinance, the monthly
allocation of food grains for the State will decline by nearly 100,000 tonnes,
from the current level of 296,000 tonnes. The centre’s food security scheme
aims to provide five kg of grain at Rs 1-3 per kg to 67 per cent of country’s
population. It is expected to cost Rs 1.2 lakh crore.
In the Delhi
seminar, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh supported Food Security for
the poor but criticised the national Food Security Ordinance saying it had
inadequate provisions and would be ineffective when implemented. He said the
central Act covers 67 per cent of population whereas Chattisgarh scheme covers
90 per cent. He urged the Centre to emulate Chhattisgarh Food Security model
for betterment of poor in the country. The Chief Minister added that different
States have different criteria and every State has different economic situation
so one needs to understand these aspects before implementing the Food Security
Act. He said it took him about six years in the field to prepare the ground
work before implementing the Act in the State, while the Centre has done no
homework at all.
According to Raman Singh, Public
Distribution System is a chain that involves production, procurement and
distribution of food grain and to implement the Food Security Act, one has to
have all the three in place. “Does the Centre have the storage capacity to
store the food grains and what about the transparency aspect in the Act?” he
asked, adding that it will not take less
than ten years for the government before it can put a system in place to
implement the Food Security Act.
As the politics on food grain
continues and brownie points scored, there is no plan in place for procurement
and storage of the food grains. Travel
on the highways in Punjab and Haryana and you find
thousands of tones of foodgrain lying in the open, covered merely by a plastic
sheet. There is simply no storage place and movement of the food grains from
the food basket of the country is extremely slow.
When procurement of wheat began
in Punjab this year, it already had nearly 8 million
tonnes in the godowns which was much more than what is normally kept for
meeting any possible food crisis. “The movement to other parts of the country
was extremely slow in the last 12 months — both Rabi and Kharif crops,” an
official admitted, adding that the Centre needs to look into this aspect
seriously and urgently.
Those involved in procurement and
distribution say storage capacity is simply not there, private sector is not
coming up in the food storage sector and the food grains have to face the
vagaries of nature lying in the open. They want these to be addressed and
incorporated in the proposed Act so that accountability is fixed and wastage be
treated as an offence.
When Parliament debates the
issues threadbare in the Monsoon Session, the country expects members to rise
above partisan party politics and address all issues raised by the stakeholders
which includes procurement, scientific storage, proper movement and strengthening
of the Public Distribution System. All
these have to be incorporated in the proposed Act along with the provisions of
successful models like the one in Chhatisgarh. Food security cannot be merely
treated as a vote bank politics and allowed to die down, the way several
central schemes have. Congress led UPA has already started treating it as an
electoral gimmick for the Lok Sabha elections allowing several rough edges in
the Ordinance which if implemented, could only lead to failure. (August 5, 2013)
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