Thousands of the hungry came from all corners of India to Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on August 28, to protest against the proposed National Food Security Bill which is planning to cut entitlements of food grains in the PDS from the current 35 kg to 25 kg per family per month. “If even existing entitlements are going to be cut, why do we need a law?” was the refrain. The bill is also planning to totally exclude 33 per cent of the population from the PDS giving continued room for exclusion errors while the demand of the Right to Food Campaign (RFC) is for universalisation or near-universalisation
The RFC also highlighted that the current poverty lines of the Centre allowed a person to eat 1 egg in 3 days and 1 banana in 6 days, drink one cup of tea in 2 days, and make do with I pair of chappals and one movie in a year!
Nearer home in Karnataka too, the food ministry has been adding to the existing confusion in the PDS. While the Planning Commission’s poverty line figures (of Rs 32/26 per person per day in urban/rural areas at 2010 prices) are themselves being contested in courts as being too low and unrealistic, Karnataka was strangely adhering to Rs 17,000/12,000 as the annual household poverty lines for urban/rural areas since decades. These work out to about Rs 9.32/6.57 per person per day or about one-fourth of the Planning Commission figures. None can survive at these levels of income. But the whole citizenry of Karnataka was being defrauded since, to be classified as BPL, they were forced to produce false income certificates saying their annual income was less than what was set.
Unrealistic poverty lines
Upon civil society questioning the above unrealistic poverty lines, the Karnataka government has decided to do away with the income criteria altogether and has announced new exclusion criteria on August 24. But the problematic distinction between BPL and APL categories, the cause of all miseries in the PDS, is being retained. The new exclusion criteria are even more ambiguous than the earlier income criteria and will lead to more problems. For instance, how can all traders having a regular shop and all workers in unaided schools be non-poor while all auto-rickshaw owners are poor? And how many new documents will one have to produce to prove that one’s electricity bill per month is not more than Rs 450, that one does not own a 100cc two-wheeler, etc?
If the income criterion is now being given up after making more than one crore families stand in endless queues and spend hard-earned money on bribes to get false income certificates, how are they going to be compensated for the losses and trauma suffered by them in this futile exercise? The state seems to think that it is its prerogative to subject citizens to untold harassment as it comes up with new demands for documents, or changes policies at its whims, every six months and makes people run around in circles. It was less than six months ago that people had to queue up to provide their electricity RR numbers through no fault of theirs because the government had bungled by issuing innumerable varieties of ration cards: ‘bogus’, ‘temporary’, ‘cards with photos’, ‘cards without photos’, and sundry others, all of which still excluded lakhs of the genuinely needy.
As per reports, there are a total of 1.20 crore households in Karnataka while the cards currently in circulation are about 1.35 crore. If only the creamy layer of 7 per cent in the organised sector, such as income-tax payees and government employees, who are unambiguously identifiable are excluded, the number of eligible households will come to 1.11 crore households. This is close to the number of BPL cards already in use and will actually be less by about 24 lakhs than the existing cards. Thus, near-universalisation with self-selection, without BPL and APL confusions, is actually less expensive and more efficient than the current chaotic and corrupt system which only harasses citizens. The measures being currently taken to ensure that one household has only one card could be continued.
While much time, energy and money is being spent in deciding who is bogus and who should be BPL, millions are malnourished and are being denied their right to food for years while they wait for the elusive cards. Thus the Campaign at Jantar Mantar also asserted that the need is not for a ‘gareebi rekha’ (poverty line), the cause of all confusion, but for an ‘Ameeri rekha’ (richness line) which would exclude only the creamy layer.
(The writer is a member of the Right to Food Campaign)
