The new rabi grain pricing policy seems to have been influenced more by macro-concerns about food inflation management rather than any considerations relating to food production planning. The marginal increase in minimum support prices (MSPs) of most rabi crops, barring pulses, is understandable given the government’s focus on inflation reduction and the fact that this marginal increase comes on top of earlier hikes of a decent magnitude. Moreover, there are...
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No right to food yet! by Praful Bidwai
India has missed a historic opportunity to abolish hunger through a universal public distribution system (PDS), which entitles all citizens to affordable food. The National Advisory Council (NAC), a progressive body established by the United Progressive Alliance, was to draft such a law, but has recommended a Bill which greatly reduces the public's entitlements. This is a setback. India's annual per capita cereal consumption has fallen to 174 kg, lower than...
More »Food Security Sans PDS: Universalization Through Targeting? by Smita Gupta
The case of the Food Security Bill gets curiouser and curiouser. What started off as a fight between universalization and targeting has ended (or so it would seem) in a complete victory in the National Advisory Council, Government of India (NAC) for targeting through universalization (if such a thing was possible), with the honourable exception of Prof Jean Dreze, who has to be commended for his ‘note of disagreement’. On...
More »Challenging task
'The creaky PDS will not be able to do the job.' The recommendations of the National Advisory Council for the National Food Security Act, made after much discussion and many revisions, cast the net wide to include 75 per cent of the country’s population within the purview of the scheme.It is the most ambitious food entitlement scheme conceived anywhere in the world and the conceptual and implementation problems are very daunting....
More »Food security to cost Rs 72,000 crore by Devika Banerji & Ajay Modi
The National Advisory Council (NAC) recommendation to guarantee foodgrain to two-thirds of the country’s population could bloat the government’s food subsidy spend by 26 per cent to over Rs 72,000 crore — equivalent to over 1 per cent of the gross domestic product. The foodgrain guarantee is part of the proposed National Food Security Bill. This is a conservative figure, compared with the Rs 78,000 crore estimated by Deutsche Bank in...
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