National Food Security

 Features and Issues :  National Food Security Bill

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) —which sets the social agenda for the UPA—had prepared the initial draft of the Food Security Bill. The salient features of the proposed Bill are:

·         The draft Bill that was earlier made public by the food ministry sought to cover up to 90% of the rural population and 50% of urban households with legal entitlement to subsidised food grains to be extended to nearly 75% of the country’s population.

·         The Priority households (46% in rural areas and 28% in urban areas) to have a proposed monthly entitlement of 35 kgs (equivalent to 7kg of food grains per person), at Rs.3 per kg for Rice, Rs. 2 per kg for Wheat and Rs. 1 per kg for Coarse grains.

·         The general households (39% in rural and 12% in urban in phase !and 44% rural and 22% urban in final phase) to have a monthly entitlement of 20 Kgs (equivalent to 4 Kg per person) at a price not exceeding the current minimum support price for millets, wheat and rice.

·         The minimum coverage and entitlement and price to remain unchanged until the end of the XII five year plan.

·         The Government of India to specify the criteria for categorization of population into priority and general households.

·         Legal entitlements for child and maternal nutrition, destitute and other vulnerable groups

·         Reform of Public distribution System.

The following issues need to be resolved to realize the goals of the proposed NFSB:

·         Given the current trends in food grain production and government procurement and the likely improvements in these over time, will there be adequate availability of food grain with the public authorities to implement the full entitlements for the priority and general category households?

·         What will be the impact of such large procurement on the open market prices?

·         What are the subsidy implications for both the phases and can these levels be sustained in future

·         Arriving at a clear definition of the priority households and general households

·         Given the inefficiencies and leakages in the current distribution system, identify the principal areas of reform of PDS and the alternative mechanisms of reaching the target households.

The food grains requirement would go up to 63.98 million tonnes (million tons) in the final phase. The NFSB proposed by NAC is a revolutionary Bill with almost universal coverage. The Bill will have huge impact on the economy. Indian agriculture is highly dependent on Monsoon God. During drought years production falls significantly in such eventualities the government will have to be dependent on the imports. As a result of this bill there will be sharp increase in the procurement of wheat and rice which may adversely affect the open market prices of food grains.