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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Flexible voices in food cell by Radhika Ramaseshan

Flexible voices in food cell by Radhika Ramaseshan

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published Published on Jan 15, 2011   modified Modified on Jan 15, 2011

Some members of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council are in favour of a “compromise” on the food security bill after a committee appointed by the Prime Minister turned down their key recommendations yesterday.

These members, speaking off the record, said they wanted to take the process forward and bring the bill in Parliament.

However, this would be subject to the view that Sonia takes on the C. Rangarajan report. The bill, which seeks to universalise the right to food by 2014, is being seen as the UPA’s next welfare blockbuster after the job guarantee scheme.

The members are also looking to see how the food security campaigners in the council, notably Aruna Roy and Jean Dreze, react. Barring a critical article by Dreze in a Delhi newspaper, the “radicals” have not yet spoken.

The 15-member council will take up the Rangarajan report on its draft bill at a meeting on January 21.

Even those in the Sonia-led council who are for an early resolution are, however, not convinced by the Rangarajan group’s contentions on food supply, larger procurement and subsidy costs.

“Nothing stops us from increasing production. In fact, the bill is a chance to boost agriculture, that’s what (M.S.) Swaminathan (also a member) has stressed in our meetings. Unfortunately, the recommendations of the Agriculture Commission he headed are gathering dust in Parliament,” a member, who is also on the working group to study the food bill, told The Telegraph.

Of the 15 council members, 10 are part of the food bill working group. The only “feasible reconciliation” lies in implementing the scheme for the Below Poverty Line recipients — as the Rangarajan report has suggested — in the first phase and aim for an expansion, based on production and procurement, the member said.

Another member, also on the food bill working group, came up with two proposals: bring the law as the council has proposed in one-fourth or 200 of the country’s poorest districts or blocks, whichever is administratively tenable, and aspire to universal extension. The NREGA (job guarantee scheme) had followed this trajectory, which took care of the fears the government had initially expressed on cost and logistics.

His second idea was to step up procurement of rice from states to the east of eastern Uttar Pradesh, that he said were out of the Food Corporation of India’s radar.

“This way the farmers will also get a better price. At the moment, they are paid less than half of what the FCI gives to their counterparts in Punjab,” he said.

Members in favour of a settlement pointed out that NAC-II is working in circumstances different from its earlier avatar. “Therefore, it does not have the same degree of clout and push,” a source said.

UPA I had a working bible in the national common minimum programme that was hugely influenced by the Left whereas UPA II has no such guide book, he explained.

“The National Advisory Council’s agenda was largely based on the common minimum programme. There was a clear-cut mandate to go by. We have nothing to go by this time, except the President’s first address to Parliament (in June 2009),” the source said.

The job guarantee scheme was also driven by a “pro-active” rural development minister, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, the source said.

Most council members agreed that pressure from the Left was a “major input” in fulfilling their agenda in UPA I.


The Telegraph, 15 January, 2011, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110115/jsp/nation/story_13442411.jsp


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