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Ramesh wants to sidestep food security Bill categories by Liz Mathew

Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh wants to sidestep categories proposed under the food security law to make sure that the welfare impact of the legislation isn’t nullified because a count that’s central to it hasn’t been completed across large parts of the nation.

Ramesh wants 25kg of foodgrain given every month to 75% of the rural poor and 50% of the urban poor at subsidized rates.

The National Food Security Bill, which was introduced in Parliament during the winter session and is currently being studied by a parliamentary standing committee, aims to provide cheaper foodgrain to the poor to ensure that people “live a life with dignity”.

The Bill, considered to be the brainchild of the National Advisory Council (NAC) led by ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, seeks to grant priority beneficiaries the right to 7kg of foodgrain per month per person at `3 per kg for rice, `2 per kg for wheat and `1 per kg for coarse grains.

General households will get at least 3kg of foodgrain per person at 50% of the minimum support price.

But the socio-economic and caste census (SECC) that needs to be conducted to arrive at the number and identity of the beneficiaries under the food security Bill will take at least another five months to complete, Ramesh said in a 28 January note to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

SECC has “slipped badly” on the earlier deadline of December 2011, Ramesh wrote in the note that Mint has reviewed. “I am personally monitoring the progress and troubleshooting whenever required. There is simply no way we will be able to complete SECC by end-June 2012. Even this, in my view, is a little optimistic. More realistically, we would expect SECC 2011 to be completed by end-July 2012,” he said.

Ramesh has written to the food ministry with the new proposal, but no decision has been taken.

“The ministry is looking into various options. Anyway, the law has to be passed by Parliament,” a top official in the food ministry said. “We have to look into the subsidy component, as well as the quantity of the foodgrain required under the new suggestion.”

If the Bill becomes law and is implemented in its current form, the food subsidy bill is expected to rise by `27,663 crore to nearly `95,000 crore, while the foodgrain requirement would go up to 61 million tonnes (mt) from 55 mt.

Another official familiar with the development said some states that now provide a larger quantity of foodgrain to the poorest of the poor than under the food security Bill may oppose it as their share may decline.

The food ministry has not sought either the views of Gandhi or NAC over Ramesh’s suggestion.

N.C. Saxena, an NAC member, pointed out that the government would not be able to conclude who the beneficiaries would be as the data hasn’t yet been updated.

“So the best option will be providing universal coverage in the poorest-of-poor districts. The status quo should remain in other districts,” he said.

Under the current public distribution system (PDS), the government provides 35kg of wheat and rice per month to 65.2 million below poverty line (BPL) families at `4.15 and `5.65 per kg, respectively. About 115 million above poverty line (APL) families get between 15kg and 35 kg of wheat and rice per month at `6.10 and `8.30 per kg, respectively. In the proposed food security Bill, there are no BPL or APL categories, only priority and general categories.

SECC, the first such exercise in independent India’s history and a process that began in July, has not covered many states. While the enumeration is more or less complete in a few of the smaller ones, large states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal have not started on it.

While local body elections have disrupted the process in Orissa and Maharashtra, the February-March assembly polls have stalled it in Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Goa and Uttarakhand. The count has been nearly completed in Punjab. It hasn’t begun in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Assam, Delhi and Jharkhand. Ramesh said he had written to the chief ministers of these states.

In the note to the Prime Minister, Ramesh said: “Enumeration is to be done in close to 2.5 million enumeration blocks with the help of about 600,000 enumerators, who are accompanied by an equal number of technically qualified and computer-literate data-entry operators selected by the country’s premier IT (information technology) majors.”

However, the process has been hampered by various hurdles. These include delays in the production and supply of hand-held devices used by the enumerators due to the inadequate supply of components and software glitches. The recruitment and training of data-entry operators and the setting up of charge centres, which are to control the census operation at the ground level, have also lagged, the letter pointed out.

The Left parties as well as some opposition-ruled states have raised objections to the Bill in its current form, saying it’s not adequate to address the food security concerns of the country. They say the Bill doesn’t have the provisions to improve storage facilities and modernize PDS.

Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa wants the Centre to leave the implementation of welfare schemes to the states, while agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has said it will be difficult to implement the proposed food security Act with the existing distribution system without sweeping reforms.