After months of public and internal debate, the National Advisory Council (nac) — an organisation whose clout and significance derive from the fact that Sonia Gandhi chairs it — has put forth a set of recommendations for the National Food Security Act. The core recommendations are to provide legal entitlements to cereals for 75 per cent of India's population, that is, 90 per cent of the rural population and the...

While the National Advisory Council (nac), Planning Commission and the Prime Minister Office are grappling over the proposed National Food Security Bill, the government has been steadily increasing allocation under the Targetted Public Distribution System (TPDS) during last many years. According to Siraj Hussain, chairman and managing director, Food Corporation of India (FCI), with the rise in procurement of wheat and rice by the corporation during last few years, more and...

The National Advisory Council, headed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, on Saturday settled for a much less ambitious National Food Security Act than it had previously agreed to. Scaling down its recommendations, it decided to recommend subsidised foodgrains for 46% of the rural Indian population and 28% of the urban population. The pruning of the recommendation had an immediate fallout, with the nac member Jean Dreaze, face of the right-to-food security campaign,...

75% of population to get 35 kg of foodgrains; 20 kg for rest After months of hard bargaining with the Planning Commission and the government, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (nac) on Saturday appeared to have got a consensus on a universal food security system with legal guarantees, even though with differential entitlements. However, the nac has expanded the concept of below the poverty line (BPL)-PDS beneficiaries, virtually doubling their number...

The National Advisory Council (nac), headed by Sonia Gandhi, on Saturday recommended to the government to grant differential legal entitlement of foodgrains to nearly 800 million people through a reformed PDS network from the next financial year. The nac also decided to set aside the BPL criteria and suggested two broad categories — priority and general — eligible for legal foodgrain entitlement under the proposed food security law. As per the recommendations,...