Click to play videoNew Delhi: The National Advisory Council (NAC) finalised its recommendations on the draft Food Security Legislation on Saturday in New Delhi. The NAC recommended that 75 per cent of Indians would have access to subsidised food. If the draft bill is cleared by the Union Cabinet, it would mean an additional expenditure of Rs 23,000 crore when fully implemented.
The Right to Food has been promised in the Congress manifesto, mentioned in the President's speech, close to Congress President Sonia Gandhi's heart had also turned into a battleground between the NAC and the Government. Even though the NAC made up its mind on the landmark legislation, there are no clear winners.
The key points in the NAC proposal: 75 per cent of India would have a legal guarantee to subsidised food. Ninety per cent of people in rural areas are to be included while 50 per cent of urban population will be covered.
They would be two categories, priority and non- priority. The priority category would get 35 kgs of foodgrain, either millet, wheat or rice at Re 1, Rs 2 and Rs 3 a kilo. The non-priroty section would get 20 kgs of foodgrain at 50 per cent of minimum support price.
The draft also proposed legal entitlements for children and expecting mother, and community kitchens for the destitute, and also recommended that the public distribution system be reformed to ensure better delivery.
There were two points which forced the NAC compromise: the stated inability of the government to procure 70 lakh metric tonnes of foodgrain, and a ballooning food subsidy bill.
In its present form, it would take the food bill from Rs 53,000 crore to Rs 80,000 crore. It is still not clear how the government would define who fell in the priority section, and who did not.
"They can take the help of the survey conducted by Tendulkar Committee and when the next survey is available the Government can take it into account," said NAC member Narendra Jadhav.
But many NAC members are unhappy with the draft.
"The final NFSA proposals are very disappointing and, on this matter, the NAC seems to have failed in its basic purpose of imparting a new vision to social policy in India. The NAC began its deliberations on a visionary note but later came under a lot of pressure to accommodate constraints imposed by the Government. The final result is a very minimalist proposal that misses many important elements of food security," said another NAC member Jean Dreze.
But the draft would be fine-tuned and then go to the Cabinet before being introduced in Parliament. It would be implemented in two phases and completed by 2014.
There are many points in the NAC draft which are likely to be debated. The first point is the high percentage of urban exclusion, the second is the comparatively higher price that people in the non-priority category would have to pay and the third if that the Right to Food would not be a universal right for all Indians.
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter and Google+)
displayed with permission. Use of the CNN name and/or logo on or as part of CNN-IBN does not derogate from the intellectual property rights of Cable News Network in respect of them.