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NAC Food Bill proposals ‘short of expectation' by Gargi Parsai
The Right to Food Campaign on Monday announced its decision to launch a country-wide protest against the National Advisory Council's framework for the proposed National Food Security Bill, which, they said, fell short of people's expectation of a comprehensive food security bill that addressed nutrition and livelihood issues.

“Even the budget proposals show no commitment to food security of people,” Campaign Convener Kavita Srivastava told journalists here.

Failed to seize opportunity

“By proposing to continue with the system of targeting [the public distribution system beneficiaries], the NAC has failed to seize the current opportunity of a proposed food security bill which will honestly address the issue of hunger,'' she said.

The NAC had put up a note on its framework for the National Food Security Bill, along with an explanatory note, for public comments on its website. Monday was the last date for sending feedback to the NAC. The NAC, chaired by AICC president Sonia Gandhi, will meet here on March 24 to discuss the suggestions on its draft Bill.

Relegated to “enabling provisions”

“The NAC's framework food production has been delinked from food security. Hence measures that could ensure food security through ensuring food production have been relegated to ‘Enabling Provisions.' These provisions are a wish-list, but there are no legal guarantees that they are enforceable at any time, even in the future,” Ms. Srivastava pointed out.

She was accompanied by Mira Shiva of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, Arun Gupta of Breast Feeding Promotion Network of India, Gautam Modi of New Trade Union Initiative, Dipti Sinha and Riya of the Campaign.

Ms. Srivastava said the framework proposed by the NAC provided guarantee to a “fragmented PDS, limited maternal and child rights, provision of cooked food to the vulnerable sections, ration cards in the name of women and portability of ration cards to migrant labour.”

Nothing for old people

While providing for an independent redressal authority, along with civil and criminal liabilities on denial of entitlements, the NAC framework had eliminated old age, widow's and family pensions although the Supreme Court brought it into the regime.

The Campaign expressed its “disappointment” with NAC moving away from the idea of a “universal PDS.”

Majority excluded

“The division of the population into categories of ‘general', ‘priority' and ‘excluded' is just a continuation of the artificial division of households into Above Poverty Line (APL) and Below Poverty Line (BPL) which, experience has shown, excludes the majority of the poor. The government's own surveys have shown huge errors of exclusion in the identification of BPL families.”