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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | With 45% of Indians excluded from the food security net, it’s time to univeralise the PDS -Swati Narayan

With 45% of Indians excluded from the food security net, it’s time to univeralise the PDS -Swati Narayan

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published Published on Jun 20, 2021   modified Modified on Jun 24, 2021

-Scroll.in

Poverty is growing, thanks to the Covid-19 economic slowdown. It’s time for the Centre to provide subsidised foodgrains to most Indians.

Have you ever closely watched ants foraging for food in the kitchen with remarkable ingenuity, teamwork and dedication? They meticulously gather food – crumbs and grains of sugar – to re-distribute to the entire colony. In addition, they store excess morsels to tide over future shortages. Bees are equally industrious. Why can’t humans learn from insects?

In theory, the National Food Security Act, passed in 2013, was designed on similar principles – to systematically procure and store seasonal harvests from farmers and guarantee re-distribution to households each month.

However, the final version of the law did not ensure universal coverage of all Indians nor did it guarantee a minimum support price to farmers for their crops. Instead, the legal guarantee extended to only 5 kg of foodgrains at subsidised prices to 75% of Indians in rural areas and 50% in urban areas.

Vast exclusions

In March 2020, to withstand the fury of the pandemic, the government announced the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana to provide an additional 5 kg of free foodgrain to the same 800 million Indians who already benefit from the food law. It has been extended till Diwali and is undoubtedly welcome. But it exacerbates rather than mitigates inequality. Millions of families without National Food Security Act ration cards have been left completely high and dry.

Typically, urban migrants do not carry or possess ration cards, which fuelled their desperation to leave the cities in which they were working when lockdown was announced last year. Even as India’s population is projected to grow to 1.3 billion in 2021, NFSA ration card lists have not been updated for the last decade.

Millions have not been included, especially children under the age of ten. Simple calculations show that currently 45% of India’s population is excluded from the National Food Security Act.

Currently, half the population in Gujarat, 49% in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, 48% in Uttarakhand, 39% in West Bengal and 36% in Uttar Pradesh have completely been left out of National Food Security Act lists. These families will neither benefit from the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana bonanza nor the hyped “One Nation One Ration” scheme.

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Scroll.in, 20 June, 2021, https://scroll.in/article/997981/with-45-of-indians-excluded-from-the-food-security-net-its-time-to-univeralise-the-pds


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