Hunger,
Food Security and PDS in India*
Prof. M.K.Ghadoliya*
Abstract
Poverty and hunger are the two dimensions of a single problem.A
considerable number of people in India go hungry as simply they cannot afford
to purchase food at very high prices. In a democratic country like India, It is
the moral duty of the government to provide food security to all as this is one
of the MDGs to be achieved by all the governments by 2015. Although the
production and productivity has increased during past few decades but the
possibility of further improvement in the production and productivity seems to
be limited. The land resources are limited and water availability is declining
day by day. To ensure the economic access of the poor
the government of India has come up with a very ambitious plan of providing
food at subsidised rates to almost all the population. The Food Security Act will boost the requirement for PDS and the
government will have to make provisions for huge amount of subsidy. It is
therefore necessary to limit the subsidy by targeting the beneficiaries into
three categories on the basis of the ownership of assets as:
(a)asset rich-income poor
(b) asset poor-income poor
(c) asset less-income poor.
The first target should be the third category of beneficiaries. This
group is most vulnerable and also most careless. They simply does not care for
themselves and also misuse the benefits by recklessly.It is the duty of the
government to stop the misuse of the subsidy by giving the responsibility to
the Panchayati Raj institutions. Another suggestion may be that such
beneficiaries should be provided with the
benefits in group through a scheme like mid-day meal so that any one
person may not spoil the scheme. The
intervention of the government should make the fate of the poor better or else
it should quit quitely. The market is efficient and it will take care of poor
in much more efficient way than the government.
Introduction
Hunger can also be viewed as a dimension of
poverty. It is true that not all poor are hungry, but almost all hungry people
are poor. Hunger Project Board Member Mohini Giri says, “To me Hunger is
rape, Molestation, dowry, illiteracy, female feticide, female infanticide, and
above all it is patriarchy. That is what Hunger is all about to me.”
What
are the Facts?
World population now
is about 7 billion and about 925 million people do not have enough food to eat.
About Two-thirds of the world’s hungry people lives in just seven countries -
China, India, Bangladesh Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Pakistan. The concept
of food security, as understood now, has been evolved over the last quarter
century. Food security concept has been considered at a number of levels:
global, regional national, state, household, and individual. While the ultimate
concern may be at the individual level it is important to realise that food
security at the levels outside the preview of the individual and households
have strong bearing at the performance at the individual level.
According to FAO
(1983), the basic concept of food security implied that “all people at all
times have both physical and economic access to the basic food they need.”
The World Bank (1986)
indicates that food security is “access by all people at all times to enough
food for an active, healthy life. Its essential elements are the availability
of food and the ability to acquire it.”
M.S Swaminathan says,
“Food security implies livelihood security at the level of each household and
all members within and involves ensuring both physical and economic access to
balanced diet, safe drinking water, environmental sanitation, primary education
and basic health care.” Based on the above definitions providing enough food to
all population at all times in a country like India is a challenging task.
Further, the population in India is growing fast so the demand for food is
growing every day. NSS data reveal that the consumption distribution has
consistently improved for the bottom 40 per cent of the population over time.
The consumption has increased of the bottom 40 percent of the population from
22 percent in 1972-73 to 24 per cent in 1999 -2000 but still people are hungry
and a sizable number are poor. Besides this, the improved purchasing power
among poor will further enhance the demand for superior food and balanced diet.
It has also been recognised that physical availability of food grains alone
will not ensure the eradication of hunger from the country. Economic access to
food for all population especially the poor and the vulnerable sections will have
to be ensured through appropriate income transfer to the poor.
NSS 38th
Round in 1983, as well as NSS 50th Round in (1993-94) and NSS 55th
Round in (1999-2000) had direct questions on Hunger that allow clear answers
from the sufferers. The NSS questions on hunger were,
·
Do
all members
of your households get two square meal/enough food every day?
·
If
not, then during which calendar months did you or other members of the
household not have enough food every day? The number of months indicated by the
household was recorded.
The proportion of
households that were hungry during any part of the year by this definition was 15.7 percent in 1983, 4.5 percent in 1993-94,
and only 2 per cent in 1999-2000. In terms of individuals assuming that every
person in the household was hungry, the estimate that the number of hungry
people declined from 15.7 per cent of the total population (101million) in 1983
to 4.4 percent of population (37 million) in 1993-94 and further 2 per cent of
the population (18.5) million in 1999-2000. It is useful to look at numbers in
relation to poverty because logically the number of hungry people must be a
fraction of the poor for any reasonable definition of poverty.
More formally, the
line defining the very poor or hungry must logically lie below the poverty
line. Thus, the hunger ratio must be lower than the poverty ratio. The ratio of
very poor / hungry to the poor may decline, stay constant, or rise, depending
on the distribution of consumption in the lower half of the distribution. Whatever
is the ratio or the number is, providing food to all in a country like India
is a challenging task.
Concept
of Food Security:
The 12th
Plan approach paper says, “The challenge is how to feed India’s growing
population with rising incomes, but limited land and water resources. The
economy is expected to grow strongly and pressure on food demand is likely to
remain strong over the 12th plan period.” In the light of these observations,
it is essential to grow enough food because this is the essential condition for
ensuring the food security. Although the production of foodgrains has increased
over the years but experts say, it is slowing down. For any programme of food security,
the rate of growth of food grains must be above the rate of growth of population.
In this context, it is important to review the production performance of Indian
agriculture with a view to understand trends and the major constraints in
achieving physical access to food.
Production
Performance:
It may be recalled
that increased availability of food is necessary condition for achieving food
security in India. Since dependence on the imported food grains for long is not
desirable. Table- 1 reveals that food grains production in India, which was
only 50.82 million tons in 1950-51 doubled in 1969-70 to 108.42 million tons because
of adoption of HYV seeds and irrigation popularly known as Green Revolution. In
1980-81 the total food grains production was 129.59 m. tons that increased to
176.39 million tons in the year 1990-91. After reaching a record level it
declined to 196.81 m. tons in the year 2000-01. The food grains production at
present is at comfortable level but any one or two bad monsoon years may change
the entire scenario.
Table: 1 Agriculture
production-Food grains (Million Tons)
Year
|
Cereals
|
Pulses
|
Total
(5+7)
|
|||
Rice
|
Wheat
|
Coarse Cereals
|
Total (2 to 4)
|
|||
1952-52
|
22.90
|
7.50
|
19.61
|
50.01
|
9.19
|
59.20
|
1955-56
|
27.56
|
8.76
|
19.49
|
55.81
|
11.04
|
66.85
|
1960-61
|
34.58
|
11.00
|
23.74
|
69.32
|
12.70
|
82.02
|
1965-66
|
30.59
|
10.40
|
21.42
|
62.41
|
9.94
|
72.35
|
1970-71
|
42.22
|
23.83
|
30.55
|
96.60
|
11.82
|
108.42
|
1975-76
|
48.74
|
28.84
|
30.41
|
107.99
|
13.04
|
121.03
|
1980-81
|
53.63
|
36.31
|
29.02
|
118.96
|
10.63
|
129.59
|
1985-85
|
63.83
|
47.05
|
26.20
|
137.08
|
13.36
|
150.44
|
1990-91
|
74.29
|
55.14
|
32.70
|
162.13
|
14.26
|
176.39
|
1995-96
|
76.98
|
62.10
|
29.03
|
168.11
|
12.31
|
180.42
|
2000-01
|
84.98
|
69.68
|
31.08
|
185.74
|
11.07
|
196.81
|
2005-06
|
91.79
|
69.35
|
34.06
|
195.20
|
13.39
|
208.59
|
2010-11
|
95.32
|
85.93
|
42.22
|
223.47
|
18.09
|
241.56
|
Data
for 2010-11 are based on advance estimates
Source:
Compiled by the author from the data of the Ministry of Agriculture, Government
of India
Experts
are of the opinion that there is a limit to increasing the food grains
production through increase in area under cultivation because the country has
already reached a plateau in so far as cultivable land is concerned. The HYV
seed which has been the basis of Green Revolution in seventies has now slowed
down. Food grains production increased
annually by 3.22 percent during fifties mainly because of the area expansion.
Sixties recorded a low annual growth rate of 1.72 percent and again a growth
rate of 2.08 per cent was recorded in seventies. The technological advancement
pushed up the growth rate during eighties and an annual growth rate of 3.5 per
cent in food grains production was witnessed that was above the population
growth rate. The growth momentum could not be maintained and during 1990-91to
2010-11 it again fell to only 1.46 per cent which is much less than the
population growth rate.
Table: 2 Annual compound Growth
rates of food grains Production
(Base
triennium ending 1980-81=100)
(Percent
Per annum)
Crop
|
1950-51
to
1959-60
|
1960-61
to
1969-70
|
1970-71
to
1979-80
|
1980-81
to
1989-90
|
1990-91
to
1997-98
|
Rice
|
3.28
|
-8.05
|
1.91
|
4.29
|
1.53
|
wheat
|
4.51
|
5.90
|
4.69
|
4.24
|
3.67
|
Coarse
cereals
|
2.75
|
1.48
|
0.74
|
0.74
|
-0.49
|
Total
cereals
|
3.00
|
2.51
|
2.37
|
3.63
|
1.84
|
Pulses
|
2.72
|
1.35
|
-0.54
|
2.78
|
0.76
|
Total foodgrains
|
3.22
|
1.72
|
2.08
|
3.54
|
1.66
|
In fact, the growth
rate of food grain production during the 1990s and thereafter has been close to
the annual population growth rate, which implies a stagnant per capita
production level. Further, this growth rate has been achieved with the strategy
popularly known as green revolution with the excessive use of fertilizers and
pesticides including heavy dependence on ground water irrigation. This is
dangerous from the point of view of environment. The strategy adopted in the
green revolution period has led to concentration of incremental increases in
wheat and rice output and marketed surplus in few states namely Punjab and
Haryana. The revolution was not wide spread in area terms as well as in terms
of crops. In order to take advantage of the large scale procurement for the
government PDS programme the political pressure groups in these states have
used the MSP as the remunerative price as there seems to be no correlation
between the price declared by Agricultural Costs and Price Commission and
procurement prices.[1]
The government under
pressure of these groups and the demand
by the regional political parties have
yielded continuously to fulfil the demands for higher and higher prices tor the
government purchases what has been
referred as Greed Revolution by the
famous agricultural scientist Swaminathan.
M.S. Swaminathan has
drawn our attention towards environmental
problems associated with the recent phase of agriculture due to excessive and unscientific use of chemical
pesticides and fertilizers and ground water. He calls it the exploitative agriculture. This
phenomenon of increased use of water and pesticides is unsustainable and is not
in the interest of long term food security for the country. The declining water
availability for irrigation has serious repercussions on food production, demand,
trade and prices. Given the current trends of our water use and water wastage
patterns, a severe crisis can evolve in future. All of us know very well that
the biggest user of the water is agriculture sector particularly irrigation,
which accounts for nearly 80 per cent of global water consumption. In
developing countries, the percentage is even more. So for any policy for food
security should also look into this aspect and should improve the irrigation
management. Further the age old traditions and methods of water conservation
strategies to cope up with the adverse consequences should be popularized for
any such contingencies.
Per
capita Production and Availability:
When resources
(especially Land) and technology constraints limit the aggregate food production,
its negative impact on food security at the household and individual
level can be minimized to some extent by the efforts on curtailing population
growth rates within tolerable rates[2].
Another way to feed the ever-growing population is to achieve the higher
fertility rates. Table: 3 presents the data of Yield Per hectare of major food grains
in the country.
Fig. 1: Total foodgrains production from
2000-01 to 2007-08.
Source:
Prepared by the authors from the data given
Agricultural situation in India;
March 2008
The fertility of wheat
has shown considerable growth from 750 kg/hectare in 1953-54 to 1630 kg/hectare
in 1980-81 and to 2281 kg/hectare in 1990-91 and 2708 kg/hectare in 2000-01.
The yield per hectare of wheat was 2938 kg/hectare in 2010-11.
Food grain production
trends according to major crops indicate non-uniform trends. The substantially
higher growth rate of above 4 per cent experienced for rice during the 1980s
has declined to 1.68 per cent during 1990s. Food grain production has been
almost stagnant for more than 10 years and now there is a growing gap between
supply and demand of food grains[3].The
emerging trends in India’s food grains output can be seen in Figure:1 output
has been fluctuating sharply.
The availability of
food grains, derived from the accounting identity involving production levels,
stock changes and trade balance, can be considered as a good estimate of the
aggregate consumption, and in spite of the limitations imposed by the problems
in obtaining stock changes. The average daily per capita availability of food grains
in 1970s remained slightly at a lower level than in the 1960s, but the 1980s
and 1990s witnessed a moderate improvement in the availability level[4].
Remember it also includes the grains spoiled in the godowns of FCI India. Table
-4 presents net availability of food grains for various years from 1951 to
2010. It also includes data on availability of rice, wheat, other cereals gram,
and pulses.
There is an
improvement in the per capita net availability of food grains over the decades
but one cannot notice any perceptible upward trend in the net availability. On
the contrary, what one notices is the YoY variability in the availability. This
may be due to fluctuations in area and productivity. During the 1990s both area
and yield levels indicated a reduction in the variability due to increased
production and huge stock position with the government. However it should be
emphasized that physical access alone will not ensure the food security unless
it is matched by economic access i.e. the purchasing power with the poor.
To ensure the economic
access of the poor the government of India has come up with a very ambitious
plan of providing food at subsidised rates to almost all the population.
Government has introduced a National food security Bill in the Parliament on 22
December 2011 to ensure the adequate safety for 400 million poor. Let us now
discuss some salient features of the bill.
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 foodgrains 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 foodgrains 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.
Large requirement for PDS and uncertainty in
production:
The foodgrains 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 foodgrains.
Now let us have a look at the Procurement, off take and stocks of the wheat and
rice under public distribution system in our country.
Table: 4 Public Distribution System –
Procurement, Off-take and Stocks
(Million
Tons)
Year
|
Procurement
|
Off-take
|
Stocks
|
||||||
Rice
|
Wheat
|
Total
|
Rice
|
Wheat
|
Total
|
Rice
|
Wheat
|
Total
|
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
10
|
1980-81
|
5.34
|
5.86
|
11.20
|
5.88
|
7.51
|
13.39
|
6.69
|
3.07
|
9.87
|
1985-86
|
9.62
|
10.35
|
19.97
|
7.40
|
11.72
|
19.12
|
10.34
|
10.21
|
20.75
|
1990-91
|
12.92
|
11.07
|
23.99
|
7.91
|
8.58
|
16.49
|
10.21
|
5.60
|
15.81
|
1995-96
|
9.93
|
12.33
|
22.16
|
11.63
|
12.72
|
24.35
|
13.06
|
7076
|
20.82
|
2000-01
|
18.93
|
16.36
|
35.29
|
10.42
|
7.79
|
18.21
|
23.19
|
21.50
|
44.98
|
2005-06
|
26.69
|
14.79
|
41.48
|
25.08
|
17.17
|
42.25
|
13.68
|
2.01
|
16.62
|
2010-11
|
31.13
|
25.92
|
56.79
|
29.80
|
23.07
|
52.87
|
28.82
|
15.36
|
44.35
|
Data for 2010-11 are based on
advance estimates
Source:
Compiled by the author from the data of the Ministry of Agriculture, Government
of India
Large subsidy Unsustainable in the long-run
In addition to the physical food
grain requirement, the proposed bill has large subsidy implications. The total
subsidy out go is expected to be much higher than the government projections.
Again, the extra foodgrains required for the distribution will have to be
produced either through area expansion or through productivity growth. The
production cost to the government will have to be added in the subsidy cost to
know the total financial burden to the government. According to an estimate, If
Parliament passes the Bill, the food subsidy bill is expected to rise by Rs. 27,663 crore at nearly Rs. 95,000 crore only in the first year of the
implementation of the Bill. The production cost of producing extra 20 to 25
million tons of foodgrains has been estimated at Rs. 1,10,600 crore.
Limited Land
If the extra foodgrains required for is
produced through an area expansion the problem is that the arable land is
shrinking. ISRO mapping shows 81 million hectare has undergone desertification.
India has net sown area of 140 million hectare only and there is ever growing
pressure of urbanisation and land going to non-agricultural uses. The food
corporation of India has limited storage capacity and every year lakhs of tons
of foodgrains is destroyed due to open storage. The cost of inefficiencies of
FCI will further cause problems for the authorities.
Decling productivity:
Again if the foodgrains required
is produced through the gain in productivity the trend witnessed do not favour
the argument. Already the Per-capita availability of foodgrains has started
showing a declining trend. In the year
2000 the per-capita availability of rice was 203.7 grams per day while that of
wheat was 160 gms per day. The availability has declined by 2009 to 188.4 gms
and 154.7 gms respectively. A number of measures will have to be taken to
increase the foodgrains production.
The present food security system
in India is marked by strange paradoxes[5]. Under this
system the relatively affluent farmers in the better of irrigated areas are
given incentives in the form of a high and rising support price. The
Procurement and distribution of foodgrains involves a subsidy and it is
believed to go not to the consumers of PDS grains but to make good the losses
incurred by the FCI. PDS has remained untargeted for years and even today the
benefits do not reach the targeted population. It can also be easily seen that
poor seem to prefer to purchase foodgrains in the open market despite all
government efforts. The system originated as a response to a critical food
crisis and it works well in the situation of crisis. Rao further mentions if
earnestly implemented liberalization could enable the food security system to much
more effectively help the poor at much less cost. The food security system has
to aim at three objectives:
·
Keeping
the aggregate production at or above the level necessary for self sufficiency
·
Reducing
the instability in food grain markets
·
Making
dependable arrangements for helping the poor to get adequate access to food
Regarding the first two
objectives mentioned above, they may be better served by phasing out the
government interventions rather than by continuing the present price support
cum procurement operations. Given the recent strong and broad based trend in
production of foodgrains and its likely continuance it makes little economic
sense to continue with a highly centralised and subsidized arrangements for
procuring large quantities of foodgrains in one corner of the country, to store
them for long periods often in the open in the absence of storage space and to
move them over long distances for distribution to consumers who appears to be
increasingly turning to the market for meeting their requirements.
Again this system is confined to
rice and wheat- has hardly much relevance in stabilising the foodgrains markets
which comprise besides rice and wheat coarse cereals and pulses marked by
considerable instability in prices. So long as the production and supply
situation continues to be comfortable, the best policy would be to leave the
markets free and gradually diminish the present large scale procurement
operations. FCI may be allowed to work as an autonomous company on commercial
principles but during the time of draught/crisis it should take control of the
entire system.
Regarding the third objective,
viz., making dependable arrangements to ensure adequate access to food for the
poor, it is necessary to keep the following points about the PDS in mind:
The families purchase part of
their requirements from the open market. Sharma (1995) Indrakant (1995) Rao
(1996) Radhakrishna (1996) find a number of poor depends totally on market. It
would be necessary to find out how far the poor turn to the market because of
absence of PDS or its poor quality and how far due to positive preference?. It
would also be important to know how is the grain purchased by the poor from the
market is utilised.
The NSS data on consumer
expenditure indicates that over the recent years the lowest three deciles of
the population rural as well as urban have increased the consumption of
non-foodgrains food items like milk edible oil sugar and Gur and other food
while their consumption for cereals has remained unchanged or even declined.
There are reports that upper strata among the poor tries to catch up the
consumption pattern of the strata above them. Such people may sale off the PDS
grains in the open market to finance their purchases on non-food grain items
below the price of their purchase. Some members of the family may sale the
grain to finance their liquor consumption or the consumption of tobacco
products.
The PDS and food security
provisions therefore need to design in such a way to prevent such types of
misappropriations. The present thinking of issuing the Smart Card to the beneficiary of the scheme of Cash Transfer may simply assure that the foodgrains reaches in the
hands of the targeted beneficiary. The beneficiary in the target group should
be classified on the basis of the ownership of assets as:
(a)asset rich-income poor
(b) asset poor-income poor
(c) asset less-income poor.
The first target should be the
third category of beneficiaries. This group is most vulnerable and also most
careless. They simply does not care for themselves and also misuse the benefits
by reckless expenditure pattern. This is the only reason for their not having
any productive asset. If cash benefits
are transferred to them they may misuse use it for financing their bad habits. If the
beneficiary himself is misusing the benefits who is going to stop them and how?
One possible way is to give this
responsibility to the Panchayati Raj Institutions at local level. It is
believed that the decentralisation will make the system more transparent and
the active participation of the needy poor will definitely improve the food
security system meant for them.
Another suggestion may be that
such beneficiaries should be provided with the
benefits in group through a scheme like mid-day meal so that any one
person may not spoil the scheme.
Thus at last it can be concluded
that the concepts of Poverty and hunger (including APL/BPL) need to be clearly
defined. It is a matter of great concern that even today the Government does
not have any acceptable definition of these concepts. The international
agencies working on these themes may not provide us a clear understanding of
these concepts. There are so many areas where we will have to do the serious
research. I am of the considered opinion that the over centralisation of the
administration is not going to provide us any relief therefore the local
problems should have local solution. The burden of the inefficiencies of the
government functionaries and machineries should not be subsidised by the public
money. Either a government intervention should be helpful or else it should
quit quietly. The market is efficient and it will take care of poor in much
more efficient way than government.
__________________________
*Director, School of Distance Education and
Learning, Jaipur National University, Jaipur.
Former Professor and Head, Department of Economics,
Vardhaman Mahaveer Open University, Kota.
[1] Swaminathan
M.S.(1996) “Science and Technology for Sustainable food security”, Indian
Journal of Agricultural Economics. Vol.51 No. 1&2 ,pp 60-75
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