The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of which India has been a founding signatory, talks of “inherent dignity” and “a freedom from fear and want”. However as of today, that remains but a worthless piece of paper in a world where one in five human beings has to see the day off on USD 1.25.
Against this backdrop, India, home to the highest numbers of such people passed the Food Security Bill last year. The Food Security Bill should be viewed as a moral imperative in a country where 47% of Indian children are malnourished, greater than 50% Indian women are anaemic and 836 million live on less than ₹20 per day. All the more because fiscal constraints or maximising government revenue were not the priority when distributing the 2G spectrum, nor even when the Commonwealth Games was hosted, or when around ₹4 lakh crores (USD 74.5b) are budgeted for direct corporate tax written off annually. If some of that is addressed, fiscal constraints will not come in the way of the second fastest growing economy in the world which is struggling with malnutrition and hunger while contemplating on the bill. There are enough states in India with excellent PDS facilities like Kerala and TN. Their model which has been acknowledged even by UNO can be used to improve the flagging PDS.
The stipulation that agricultural production has to increase to meet the expected production levels is a welcome thing since the investment leads to higher agricultural output and per acre yield, thus acting as a compulsory checklist solving many related problems for the policy makers. Moreover considering the fiscal constraints, the Centre is not to bear the costs alone, but the states will also pitch in.
The state of Maharashtra and indeed pockets of a few others afflicted by farmers’ suicides has been home to a very inhuman and degrading practice of “rotating hunger” borne out of circumstances. Since the meagre earnings of a day can in no way provide for enough nourishment to meet the requirements of heavy labour, it is the practice among families to allow one member of a family to eat well and work for that day while the others starve the day off and cannot work. This is passed on to another member the next day, meaning many people get to eat just once a week! This could be solved because instead of one of the family members eating a decent meal and then going to work leaving the rest starving or malnourished, the new system would ensure everyone eats enough everyday to increase capacity to work efficiently in physical labour, which again would have a cascading effect on output simply because there would then be more people engaged in labour.
The bill can improve the supply system thereby lowering prices, and also helps in the proper usage of otherwise rotting wheat as that is the only way out to meet the quantitative requirements. This helps combat food price inflation and fulfills many of the bill obligations without additional expenses by dipping into the quantity of rotting wheat every year and making a channel to distribute that.
As for the economic fallout, India is already reeling under a spate of bad news on the economic and capital markets fronts. The country’s economic growth is expected to slow down to 6.5% or lower for the year, thanks to a combination of several interest rate increases and a lack of reforms by the government as well as some blowback from the European financial crisis.
India’s fiscal deficit is around 5.5% of gross domestic product, higher than most other Asian countries and above the government’s official target of 4.6%.It is obvious that India cannot sustain such a high fiscal deficit for long. New spending as proposed by the food security bill will just make the fiscal side bleed even more. To meet the requirements of the Food Security Bill, India will annually need 60 million to 61 million tons of grains to feed people who will be eligible for assistance under the program, up from around 55 million tons it needs now for state-run welfare programs.
This will cause food subsidies to balloon to an estimated 94,973 crore rupees ($18.05 billion) in the first year of implementing the food security program, up from around 67,300 crore rupees now. The government will also need an investment of 110,000 crore rupees to boost farm output over next few years. It might be difficult for the government to buy or import enough grain to sustain the program, thereby necessitating a fresh Green Revolution of self-reliance in food production. Bluntly put, the spiralling deficit bill is no excuse. If that is the case the State must propel self-reliance in food production, that brings down a possible agriculture import bill.
A fundamental question about the bill remains: Would it actually alleviate hunger in India? India’s child malnutrition rates are worse than sub-Saharan Africa’s, and nearly half the country’s children are underweight, according to the World Bank.
Several parts of the Food Security Bill make it hard to predict its impact on hunger. Though under the recent recommendation the current categorization of “general” and “priority” may be done away with,the experience of many drought and suicide-prone states like Maharashtra in delivery of benefits to Below-Poverty-Line families does nothing to counter the cynical argument that this is another scheme for brazen pilfering in the name of facilities for the poor.
The bill does attempt to address the biggest shortcoming of the current system, which is that many of the poor do not get the subsidized food they are entitled to. For every rupee that reaches the common man, the government spends almost three because of such leakages. It works around this by proposing that poor Indians get a food security allowance, or cash, along with a complaint mechanism if they were not provided the food they should receive.
The bill has made an effort to empower women by recognizing them as heads of households, but without addressing how this would be enforced. This is especially significant considering the social setup of a country like India where women are viewed mostly (even by official machinery) as subservient/dependent on the men-folk of the house, irrespective of the actual workings in those homes. The hard to miss conclusion is that though good on intent, this bill does nothing to address the inherent weakness of access to official machinery of a woman in India’s deeply patriarchal system.
It is also unclear on the independence of compliance mechanisms. Regulatory agencies would be under the direct control of those very Central and State officials also responsible for providing subsidized food in the first place. State governments would also be required to set up vigilance committees, but those agencies’ powers would be limited to bringing violations to the attention of district officers and reviewing the implementation of the act. They do not carry any enforcement authority, resulting in little by way of penal action.
Lastly, food would continue to be provided through the chaotic existing government food distribution system, which the proposal only says the government should “endeavour to” overhaul. The absence of any time frame or penalties for not accomplishing that makes this aspect of the proposal merely a directive rather than enforceable. Here though one cannot form a blanket opinion. Though the Public Distribution System in India is admittedly terrible on the whole, there are pockets of efficiency that can be emulated, like the system in the States of Kerala and Tamil Nadu that have an outstanding system of universal PDS, one that has even elicited praise from the United Nations as a role model for state welfare delivery in similar underdeveloped economies.
On the whole, it is obvious that such an idea cannot succeed with a guiding mantra of “let’s do it if it’s economically viable else shelve it”. It has to be “Come hell or high water we need to get this going, let’s just see how this can be made economically viable”. It is an extremely well-intentioned proposal, with immense potential to provide a stable dignified livelihood to millions, but its efficacy depends on making mandatory the “advisory” or “suggestive” proposals on the delivery mechanism. Here’s hoping the mandarins in the Planning Commission get the good sense and intent to get this proposal going!
(The author acknowledges valuable inputs from classmate Pramit Das in the drafting of this post)
