Major concerns related with food security
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What the present proposed National Food security Bill states?
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What we (Sanjha Samvad) are proposing?
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PROPORTION OF POPULATION COVERED
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Legal entitlement to subsidized food grains to be extended to at least 75% of the country’s population - 90% in Rural areas and 50% in urban areas and that too based on the prioritization of APL and BPL
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Cover 100% of rural population and 100 % of urban poor (must be clearly mentioned urban poor) irrespective of any prioritization i.e. BPL or APL in distribution of food grains. Prioritization in distribution of food on the basis of BPL & APL has many loopholes and there are BPL families who have APL cards and there are APL families who have BPL cards. So when we discuss for coverage coverage would not be only limited to the category of people rather it would reach to all and serve the purpose of addressing food security issue.
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AMOUNT & PRICING UNDER FOOD SECURITY BILL
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The priority households (46% in rural areas and 28% in urban areas) to have a
monthly entitlement of 35 Kgs (equivalent to 7 Kgs per person) at a subsidized
price of Rs. 1 per Kg for millets, Rs. 2 per Kg for wheat and Rs. 3 per Kg for rice
The general households (39% rural and 12% urban in phase 1 and 44% rural and
22% urban in final phase) to have a monthly entitlement of 20Kgs (equivalent to 4
Kgs per person) at a price not exceeding 50% of the current Minimum Support
Price for millets, wheat and rice
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Option 1:
In terms of amount of food distributed there could be the possibility of “supplement” of 10 kgs per BPL
household could be provided by the central government to all states that currently
give 35 kgs to BPL households, for a limited period of (say) three years. This would
be easy to do, since the government has large excess stocks at the moment[1].
Option 2:
To distribute coupon cards to those in need of supplemental food? Cards could be used in retail shops to buy surplus grain or other specific products. The retailers would buy the stock from the governments (union/state) or government sponsored farmer coops. The shops, both large and small, would be allowed a 5-6% mark-up from the price they pay, providing them reason to be involved. It would also save the government from being a direct distributor; they'd send mystery shoppers out to ensure mark-ups are with parameters. As a buyer, government could shape better prices for farmers, and also influence retail prices as a retail supplier. Coupons may deflect inflationary pricing from direct cash payments. And as an aside, grow more tasty amaranth and high amino/protien quinoa, less wheat
Option 3:
Retain and strengthen the Antyodaya programme, as it is.
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STORAGE OF FOOD GRAINS
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No concrete talk on it
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Distribution of food would be possible only when there would be food availability and to make food available in better condition for longer period of time, there is need of proper storage of food grains at Panchayat or village level. It has been noticed that the production of food garins is quite good but food is not able to reach to the needy because we don’t have proper storage system. So it would be vital to work on the storage of purchased food grains at village/Panchayat level on priority basis.
With the current procurement and storage
capacity of a little above 42.5 million tonnes, providing 68.76 million tonnes of
foodgrain in the first phase and 73.98 million tonnes in the final phase
implies significant scaling up of the procurement, warehousing and supply chain operations. This involves large financial outgo which has not been quantified as
yet.
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STRENGTHENING PDS
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No discussion on it
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It is important to consider the ground reality of PDS system functioning and its reach to the community in need. As the distribution of food grains would be through the PDS, so it would be vital to work on strengthening PDS in terms of availability of food grains, timely opening and closing, proper storage of food grains, quality of food grains, proper listing of beneficiaries and display of the same at the PDS, timely supply of food grains to the PDS shop, allocation of PDS shop to SC & STs on priority basis and the shop owner must be minimum 10th pass.
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MECHANISM FOR SELLING OF FOOD GRAINS IN OPEN MARKET ( THROUGH PDS SHOP OWNERS)
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No such provisions are mentioned in the National Food security bill to combat corruption
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There will be the impact of such large government food grain procurement on the
open market prices, an I turn this may lead to the corruption in terms of:
Considering the above it is vital to work on the combating mechanism of corruption in food distribution at the end level i.e. PDS shops.
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ESTIMATES OF FOODGRAINS REQUIRED FOR IMPLEMENTING THE NFSB
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Estimation of requirement of food grains is on the basis of estimation of population % of October 2010
Expert committee report said that:
NAC has estimated the entitled food grain requirement (PDS) for phase
at 49.36 million tonnes and for the final phase at 55.59 million tonnes. These
estimates are based on the assumption of 85 per cent offtake of foodgrain during
Phase 1 and 90 per cent offtake of foodgrain during the Final Phase. It is
understood that NAC has used the population projections of the National
Commission on Population for October 2010 for estimating the grain requirement for both the phases.
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On examination, it appears that the foodgrain requirement projected by
the NAC need to be revised, as population projections for October 2010 have
been used by the NAC for both the phases. To obtain more realistic foodgrain
requirement, EC has used the population projections pertaining to the year for
Which the phases are to be implemented. In other words for phase 1, population
projections for October 2011 have been used and for the final phase, projections
for October 2013 have been used
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SUBSIDY IMPLICATIONS
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According
to the NAC projections the total subsidy will work out to Rs 71,837 crores in the
first phase and Rs 79,931 crores in the final phase.
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In addition to the physical food grain requirement, the proposed NFSB
has large subsidy implications. The total subsidy outgo is expected to be higher
than the projections by NAC on account of a number of factors. Firstly, according
to the NAC projections the total subsidy will work out to Rs 71,837 crores in the
first phase and Rs 79,931 crores in the final phase. However this figure
needs to be revised upwards if we change the population figures to October 2011
and 2013 projections for the two phases and assume 100 per cent off take.
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Procurement of FOOD GRAINS ( Scaling up and MSP)
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Plan of scaling up has not been clearly mentioned and scaling up process with Minimum Selling Price (MSP)
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To increase the procurement of food grains there is vital need increasing the MSP so that more and more farmers could come and would able to sell their produce, also it is important to establish nodal centers for procurement at village level (which would provide and ease to the farmers to sell their there produce) , although it may imply a large fiscal burden which are difficult to quantify. Another option could be think in line with the input, production and produce of the food crops, at present it has been noticed that input cost in the agriculture is increasing on every crop where as the production remains the same, so important is to reduce the input cost in agriculture and to enhance the production cost, for this parallel to the NFSB, govt. could introduce the concept of promotion of organic cultivation and subsidy of organic inputs so that input cost in the agriculture would remain same or become less and the production would keep on increasing as the organic inputs improves the soil health, where as the synthetic inputs decay the soil health. Once the farmer would have less input cost even with the existing MSP they would be able to get the good profit.
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[1] Foodgrain stocks stood at 54 million tonnes on 1 March 2012 (the highest-ever level for that date, just before the rabi harvest). They are expected to rise to 74 million tonnes by 1 June 2012.
SANJHA SAMVAD
-a network of professionals and NGOs for the development of communities, context and culture
Sanjha Samvad is a development network, initially started in the form of e-network of two innovative livelihood based projects of Caritas India India
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