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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Misplaced largesse for food security-Kathyayini Chamaraj

Misplaced largesse for food security-Kathyayini Chamaraj

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published Published on May 31, 2013   modified Modified on May 31, 2013
-Deccan Herald


The very first announcement made by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on taking charge as the new CM is that the unit system under the Public Distribution System (PDS) would be scrapped and 30kg of rice at Re 1/kg would be given to each Below Poverty Line (BPL) household, irrespective of the size of the family.

This is estimated to cost Rs 2,373 crore a year, almost double the estimated Rs 1,200 crore in this year's budget. Officials opine that this would be the actual increased cost, and not just Rs 460 crore as announced, since the additional requirement of 1.46 lakh tonnes of rice will have to be bought from the Centre at rates fixed for the Above Poverty Line (APL) category.

Currently, each person, considered a ‘unit', is eligible for 4 kg rice per month at Rs 3 kg in BPL households: while families with up to five members get food grains equivalent to the number of ‘units' or persons in them, a family with more than five members gets the maximum of 20 kg only.

One wonders if the new measure is the best possible way to use the enhanced outl ay of Rs 1,173 crore per year. Sadly, while the intent of the new government to help the poor is to be appreciated, it appears doubtful if any value addition or desirable outcome is going to be achieved by the new initiative.

Full requirement

Will the initiative entitle every individual in the state to some measure of food security? No. By scrapping the unit system and replacing it with a fixed amount of 30 kg/family/month irrespective of family size, a new form of inequity will be introduced. Families with only one or two members will be getting their full requirement of 14 kg of cereal/person/month recommended by nutritionists, while larger families with five or more members will have to make do with insignificant amounts which will not ensure them even a modicum of food security.

Instead, would it be a better solution to fix a family's entitlement based on its size and remove the ceiling of 30kg per family? By this, every individual in a family will have an entitlement, as it used to be decades ago. The amount of grain saved on the smaller families could be given to the larger families instead of creating fresh inequalities.

Will the new system remove the confusing criteria and distinctions between APL and BPL under the current targeted PDS system, which is the source of all inclusion and exclusion errors and resultant deprivation of food security? Again, no. Could a better outcome be reached with the enhanced outlay by the following measure? The census of 2011 gives the number of households in the state as close to 131.8 lakhs. One could assume that 10 per cent or 13.18 lakh well-to-do families (which pay income tax or have secure jobs in the organised sector), would not want or require food grains from the PDS and can be safely and unambiguously excluded. It leaves 118.62 lakh households that would need the PDS.

Already, the number of cards issued for the Anna Antyodaya Yojana (AAY) and BPL households together is 98.16 lakhs. Adding the remaining 20.46 lakh households to this number and by not making any distinction between BPL and APL, all individuals could receive the same entitlement of grain at the same price and discontents and constant struggles to be classified as BPL would vanish.

With the proposed additional procurement bringing the total available food grains to 2.88 lakh MT, it is still possible to provide about 5kg rice per month, higher than the current 4kg, to every single individual in all the 118.62 lakh families. The above figures indicate that near universalisation (90 per cent coverage of households) without distinction between APL and BPL is not at all as impossible as believed. Of course, this is still a long way away from ensuring the required 14 kg cereals/person/month to all.

But could this opportunity to rethink the system have been used imaginatively to address the shameful malnourishment levels in the state rather than merely giving more rice? Instead of rice, could not locally grown, nutritionally-superior millets have been procured and distributed, simultaneously boosting local production of these crops, especially in the backward areas of Karnataka? Or, why could not pulses and oil be given to each family, as was required to be done under the PDS in 1993 itself by the National Nutrition Policy? It is the unaffordability of pulses and oil which is the major reason for malnourishment among the poor and the consequent disgrace suffered by the state.

(The writer is with the Right to Food Campaign -Karnataka)


Deccan Herald, 30 May, 2013, http://www.deccanherald.com/content/335400/misplaced-largesse-food-security.html


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