Listen to Mr Pawar

The agriculture minister is right about food security

Among the large number of disparagers of the government’s proposed food security law, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has been the most relentless, and also among the most outspoken. His latest salvo, expressing misgivings about its smooth implementation without investing more on boosting food production, is as relevant as the objections he had raised earlier concerning its impact on the already fragile state of the government’s finances. The landmark Bill, now before the parliamentary standing committee, aims at providing a statutory right to about 64 per cent of the country’s population to highly subsidised grain — Rs 3 per kg for rice, Rs 2 for wheat and Rs 1 for coarse grains. Its enforcement is anticipated to swell the annual food subsidy outgo to anywhere between Rs 90,000 crore and Rs 1,00,000 crore, from around Rs 65,000 crore currently. The unease extends beyond the agriculture ministry: the finance ministry too seems uneasy about the additional financial burden the legislation would impose, apart from its other implications in terms of higher food procurement and the consequential tightening of grain supplies in the open market. What is truly disconcerting is that the foodgrain requirement will likely go on increasing every year, and may necessitate food imports if domestic harvests dwindle due to, say, drought.

Indeed, though the concept of a legally binding right to food has been associated with pushing from the National Advisory Council, headed by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, many members of this council, too, are disappointed over the food Bill in its present form. So are some food rights activists, who have gone to the extent of calling for scrapping the present Bill and redrafting it afresh to address genuine food and nutrition security concerns — which go way beyond the supply of cereals. They are also concerned about the identification of the poor which, they fear, may leave a sizable section out of the food security net while including those who do not need the subsidy. And in addition to all this, most state governments, which are supposed to implement this law, have expressed their own considerable reservations. Their biggest worry is the degree to which the new law would add to their financial liabilities: apart from supplying foodgrain, the state governments are required under the proposed legislation to provide cooked meals to the destitute, notably pregnant and lactating mothers and young children. In case they fail to do so, they are required to compensate them with cash. Given that the states with higher incidence of poverty also happen to be ones facing a greater financial crunch, this concern is understandable.

Some states, on the other hand, are already supplying foodgrain to the poor at prices lower than those mooted under the planned statute. Such people, therefore, may not gain anything from the proposed legislation. Mr Pawar’s concerns are well taken, and he clearly represents a large number of stakeholders that, while committed to the idea of food security, nevertheless realise that this Bill is not a workable or implementable draft, and will inevitably lead to enormous glitches when the time comes to put it in practice. The government should listen to Mr Pawar, and revisit its plans.