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| The Hindu-Keshav |
There are uncanny parallels between the history of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the course so far of the National Food Security Bill. Both legislations were drafted by the National Advisory Council, tabled in Parliament in a much diluted form, and substantially repaired in response to various agitations and recommendations (including those of a Parliamentary Standing Committee) before being put to vote. The revised version of the National Food Security Bill was recently cleared by the union cabinet and is expected to be discussed in Parliament before the end of the budget session. Like NREGA, the revised food bill is a compromise document that falls short of the initial vision behind it and yet upholds some important entitlements.
These entitlements include an assured quota of subsidised foodgrains from the public distribution system (PDS), maternity benefits for all pregnant women, and nutritious meals for children through local anganwadis or primary schools. Starting with the PDS, every eligible household will be entitled to 5 kg of foodgrains per person per month at a symbolic price (Rs 3, 2 and 1 per kg for rice, wheat and millets, respectively).
Eligible households are to cover 75% and 50% of the rural and urban populations, respectively. These are national coverage ratios,which are expected to be adjusted state-wise based on a fairness principle, so that the coverage is higher in the poorer states.
This is a significant departure from the current framework, whereby the PDS is “targeted” to below poverty line (BPL) households. BPL targeting has proved as unreliable as it is divisive, and the whole approach has lost credibility. Many states have moved away from it in recent years, and achieved radical improvements in the PDS by making it more inclusive if not universal, along with other reforms. The food bill is an opportunity to complete this transition towards an inclusive and functional PDS across the country. However, the entitlements 5 kg of foodgrains per person per month are very modest, especially at a time of mounting excess stocks. The food bill missed an opportunity to take inspiration from states that have started providing nutritious items such as pulses and edible oil under the PDS, greatly enhancing its value as a means of promoting better nutrition.
The provision for universal maternity entitlements has attracted little attention and yet it is a breakthrough of sorts. The benefits are small (Rs 1,000 per month for six months, that too subject to the parameters of a suitable “scheme”), but the principle is important, and provides a valuable foothold for further expansion of these entitlements in the future. It is particularly significant that these benefits are not restricted to two children,in spite of a relentless insistence on this restriction from the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
As far as children are concerned, the bill falls short of entitlements that are already in place under interim orders of the Supreme Court in the “right to food” case. For instance, under these orders all children below six years are entitled to all Integrated Child Development Services including supplementary nutrition, healthcare and pre-school education. Only supplementary nutrition has been included in the food bill, which misses the integrated nature of children’s needs and rights. The bill, of course,does not override Supreme Court orders, and can still be seen as a consolidation of rights that need to be affirmed in every possible way. However, considering the critical importance of early childhood for lifetime nutrition, health and well-being, the lack of attention to children in the food bill, and indeed in the entire process of framing this bill, is deplorable.
The bill has many other shortcomings. First, by leaving the selection of households eligible for PDS entitlements to the discretion of state governments, it keeps people at the mercy of the authorities. Instead, the bill should make it mandatory for state governments to notify explicit eligibility criteria, so that people are able to claim their entitlements as a matter of right. Second,the bill has very weak provisions for grievance redressal – in this respect, it fails to learn from one of the major mistakes made in the drafting of NREGA. Third, the minimum nutritional norms for “take-home rations” (a permissible alternative to cooked meals for young children), including micronutrient fortifi cation “as per 50% of recommended daily allowance”, provide a dangerous foothold for food manufacturers and contractors, who are constantly trying to invade child nutrition programmes for profit-making purposes. Fourth, the bill effectively allows for the replacement of food entitlements with cash transfers on the government’s own terms, without any safeguards. This opening could easily be used to dismantle the PDS without putting a sound alternative in place. Last but not least, in the process of successive revisions of the bill, a series of entitlements for the most vulnerable groups have been discarded, including social security pensions, special entitlements for destitute households, and
community kitchens.
The need for a major food security initiative in India is hard to deny. The country has some of the worst nutrition indicators in the world, whether one looks at children’s height, or women’s Body Mass Index(BMI), or birthweight, or micronutrient intakes, or other indicators. Addressing this nutritional emergency requires a range of bold interventions concerned not only with food but also with other requirements of good nutrition including maternal care, health facilities, drinking water, and sanitation. The food bill is a limited step in the right direction, after years of public pressure.Yet it does not fundamentally alter the myopic attitude of the government in matters of health and nutrition – an attitude that not only disregards people’s constitutional rights but also overlooks the centrality of good health for participatory development.
