We must know our Bills

Planting a sapling

In all of the School Nature club lectures I am taking the opportunity of checking out with the children regarding what they feel about the recently passed Food Security Bill.  A lot of students in the countryside are unaware of the issue or thoroughly ill-informed. Even in the remotest corner of Chamarajanagara district like Lokkanalli and Kesthur children in the government High schools feel that the nation would incur huge losses by its implementation. I need not make any special mention about their (my) dear teachers as they were one step ahead and related it to the nose diving value of the Indian Rupee.  

Addressing the students

Well, that is not as worse as some the programs being beamed by the media where religious fortune tellers finding fault in the design of the Indian rupee coin. They have gone to the extent of pronouncing remedial measures for the physical appearance of a Rupee based in the Vasthu.

How long our masses should be subjected to such (non) sciences’. Have we technically developed enough to stop imports of machinery and gadgets in any field? Telecommunication, medical or Military- we are economically enslaved to one or another country. Since Globalization in the early nineties through the days of India Shining to the present day when of Food Security Bill is passed India’s growth upped from 5-6% to 6-9% at its best and then slumped after the 2008 recession. The share of India’s Global trade doubled from 0.5% to 1.5%. The new wealth spawned a new generation of a very small fraction of India’s population. The entire period created the greatest wealth divide in human history. A study reveals that the top 10% of Indians own 53% of India’s wealth, while the bottom 10% only 0.2%. About 50 million people mostly of rural or forest origins have been displaced to make way for the country’s growth we have had. Fifty five percent of the 350 million urban populations still live in ever growing slums.

Food grains at the warehouse

At Lokkanally the school was upgraded to Junior College where I went for a presentation on ‘Food-water’ Foot Print. The students in the college had all enjoyed the mid day meal in their High School in the same premises. Now they were missing it.  None of them had the habit of carrying a lunch box from home. I didn't know if they were hungry. Who is to say? But what really mattered was on the same day there was a district level sports going on at Kollegal and nobody from this college was representing it.

FCI godown

We are a country with a quarter of the world’s starving population in spite of the great stocks of food grains that gets accumulated every year. In good monsoon years, almost 700 lakh metric tonnes of food grain lie rotting in warehouses or in the open. Economist Jean Dreze says if all the sacks of grains are lined up in a row, it would stretch more than 1 million km. taking us to the moon and back. Often, the government exports it at a loss to other countries to feed cattle and pigs instead of distributing it successfully to its poor.

Hungry people world wide in 2010

The food Bill is actually little more than a “Public Distribution System (PDS) Restructuring Bill”. The food grain requirements of the Bill are no more than existing allocations. Other entitlements (such as midday meals) do not go beyond the rights that people already have under Supreme Court orders, with the main exception of maternity entitlements. The Bill is a form of investment in human capital. It will bring some security in people’s lives and make it easier for them to meet their basic needs, protect their health, educate their children, and take risks.

In short, the food Bill is sound economics. It will put the entire PDS on a new footing and ensure much better use of the food subsidy.

Food security legislation