Dr.Manmohan Singh
At the Cabinet Meeting held at the Prime Minister’s residence in New Delhi, the Union Cabinet has cleared the National Food Security Bill. The bill is in pursuance of the promise made in the Congress Manifesto of 2009. The bill is expected to be tabled in the Parliament during the current winter session.
The Food Security Bill seeks to provide food grains to 63.5 per cent of the country’s population. The bill seeks to supply rice at Rs 3, wheat at Rs 2 and coarse grains at Re 1 per kg.
K.V.Thomas, Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, said: “Sonia Gandhi has taken a lot of interest in the Food Security Bill, so we are following her instructions.”
Though the bill was taken up for discussion at the previous cabinet meeting on 13th December itself, a decision was put off because of the concerns raised by Sharad Pawar, Minister for Agriculture, about its financial implications and sustainability. Pawar said that the food subsidy would shoot up from the present Rs.63,000 crore to Rs120,000 crore per annum if the bill were passed.
That the government which wants to abolish subsidies in respect of fertilisers, cooking gas, petrol, diesel, etc is gleefully pushing forward this Food Security Bill is rather interesting. Is it because more votes are at stake here?
The laudable objective of providing food to all our hungry millions and the high-flowing rhetoric of our politicians make it impossible to assail such measures without inviting numbing, stinging criticism. Yet, we cannot help voicing our concerns.
While the objective of providing food to the country’s hungry millions is perfectly laudable, the bill raises some disturbing issues.
The most important of them is how the subsidies are going to be funded. Can we really afford what is bound to be perpetual largesse because of the Holy Cow status the measure – like our reservation policy – is bound to acquire? Privy Purses are easy to withdraw; public welfare measures like this are not.
The next issue is the sacrifices that the country shall be compelled to make in other areas and the detriment the allocation of funds could have on all other development programmes.
The third is whether the government is encouraging sloth by providing highly subsidised food grains; a better approach is to find employment for people rather than offer free meals or near-free meals; but governments and political parties would go for populist programmes even at the cost of wrecking the country rather than find long-lasting solutions which require dedication and deep thought on their part. So long as it is the tax-paying common man who is sacrificed, the political parties can’t care less.
Yet another issue is that given what our political parties and “party workers” are, this bill is bound to result in a vast misuse of public funds while deserving beneficiaries continue to languish in hunger.
Telugu Desam leader N.T.Rama Rao of Andhra Pradesh wooed the masses with his programme of Rs.1 per kg of rice; subsequent governments of AP followed his footsteps – though somewhere along the line the price was raised to Rs.2/- per kg of rice. And now it is the turn of the central government – and the Congress Party – to emulate him. What we mutely witness is a cynical disdain for the welfare and development of the country in the long run.
Behind the apparently benevolent facade of it all is the cynical pursuit of vote banks.
No matter whether the policy is right or wrong, prudent or imprudent, the timing of the bill seems to have been calculated to impress the gullible public just as elections are about to be held in five states.
Tags: National Food Security Bill
