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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Focus on food, not vote by Shankkar Aiyar

Focus on food, not vote by Shankkar Aiyar

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published Published on May 27, 2011   modified Modified on May 27, 2011
The debate over the National Food Security Act has been reduced to a circus for political parties, NGOs and the National Advisory Council to perform verbal calisthenics. The discussion on who is entitled, who is not entitled and who should be entitled has gone on for over two years. The discourse is deteriorating into informed nit-picking. The time for debate is over; the time for decision is overdue.

Let us get this straight. Food security is not, and cannot be about vote security. Every argument for restricting entitlement helps the incestuous political class to build a vote bank. The optics of politics demands the illusion of politicians denying the haves and providing the have nots. Those producing arithmetic formulations favouring targeting of deprived groups to deliver support are engineering an opportunity for political parties to extract rent.

The first step therefore is to dump this pretence of targeting of the poor. Not only has targeting failed but it has aggravated perversity. Every step in the evolution of the public distribution system and the creation of targeted schemes has led to denial of relief rather than enlargement of support. The filters meant to restrict benefits to the poor have in a sense become barriers. Those arguing about targeting the poor are living in la-la land.

The literature on the efficacy of the PDS and TPDS systems is really a litany on the pathetic failure of targeting. Consider these facts:

1. As many as 51 per cent of rural households possessing less than 0.01 hectares of land had no ration card at all

2. Almost 60 per cent of the BPL or Antyodaya cards have been given to households belonging to the non-poor category

3. In rural India BPL cards were held by 40 per cent of Scheduled Tribe households and 35 per cent of Scheduled Caste households

4. 16 states were issued 14.07 million tonnes of grains for BPL families. Of this around 5.93 million tonnes was delivered to BPL families while 8.14 million tonnes never reached them.

5. About 57 per cent of subsidised grains do not reach the targeted BPL group while 36 per cent are siphoned off the supply chain.

It is obvious that part of the reason for the collapse of the PDS and its perverse exploitation is the wretched state of governance. But there is no denying that the perverse exploitation of the system has been driven by differential pricing. While India can only live in the hope of better governance, it can surely shed the pretence of targeting.

By default the next step therefore is to design a system of universalising food security. Guarantee every household in India 35 kg of grains at a common subsidised rate against a ration card. Self-selection will keep the rich out. The motivation for the proposed act is to provide a guarantee of adequate nutrition and derives its legitimacy from the interpretation of the right to life with dignity by the Supreme Court. Ergo, a universal right should not by definition be subject to qualifications. Since policy in India is wedded to the ‘precedent culture’ policy-makers may want to look at other initiatives. The mid-day meal scheme or the ICDS specifies no qualification.  

Yes the costs will appear to be high but are not forbidding. The National Advisory Council estimates all cardholders will require 64 million tonnes of grain. The current price differential between BPL and Above Poverty Line subsidy is `4 (per kg on a 60:40 basket of rice and wheat). Do the math on what will be the incremental cost to the exchequer. The long term benefits will far outweigh the costs and not just in terms of nutrition and curbing food price inflation. Factor the income support to those dependent on agriculture, the building of capacity and the geo-strategic edge this will deliver. The sceptics may want to review the literature on the benefits of the mid-day meal scheme and the kind of dogmatic opposition the universalisation of the scheme faced.

The context of poverty in India demands a re-look at policies. The government spends `3.65 to transfer `1 to the poor There is not a single scheme where targeting has resulted in the translation of outlays into desired outcome. The midday meal scheme benefited children from an estimated 22.8 per cent of rural households in 2004-05, the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) benefited 5.7 per cent of rural households, the food-for-work scheme only 2.7 per cent, and the Annapoorna scheme for the elderly 0.9 per cent. In urban India, while children from 8 per cent of households benefited from the midday meal scheme and the ICDS scheme benefited 1.8 per cent households, only 0.2 per cent urban households benefited from Annapoorna.

To recognise the scale of the problem look at the landscape of poverty numbers. According to the Planning Commission 6.52 crore families or 326 million live below poverty line. Using a new nuanced set of parameters the Tendulkar Committee has established the head count ratio at 37.2 per cent of the populace, which is 450 million. The issue of BPL cards by state governments put the number of poor at 554 million. The Arjun Sengupta Committee categorised 836 million or 77 per cent of the population in 2004-05 as poor and vulnerable living on less than Rs 20 per day.

The numbers are numbing. The magnitude of poverty makes it imperative to universalise the food security act. Yes, it seems inequitable — delivering benefits to the haves — but so is the pricing in diesel, domestic power, fertilisers and water. Indeed one way to make the initiative equitable is make the rich pay for a part of the cost through a cess on exemptions claimed by corporate India. There is scope for fine tuning once the Unique Identity Numbers and the BPL census are available. India must not hesitate now. The costs are trifling for a trillion dollar economy and no price is too high to acquire strategic edge.

Shankkar Aiyar, analyst and senior journalist on sabbatical, specialises in the interface of politics and economics.

E-mail: shankkar.aiyar@gmail.com

Express Buzz, 26 May, 2011, http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/columnists/focus-on-food-not-vote/278138.html


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