Food Security Bill: Time To Act
By Dr. Niranjan Chichuan
27 June, 2013
Countercurrents.org
The basic objective of the Congress led- United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s proposed Food Security Bill is to address the acute problems of hunger and malnutrition in India. Despite of having a number of food intervention schemes and entitlements, relating to social security, child nutrition and healthcare, the malnourishment become an everyday reality in India. Most childhood deaths are mainly attributed to malnutrition. One in every four persons is malnourished and one in every three malnourished children in the world lives in India. It requires a firm political commitment in fighting hunger and malnutrition in systematic way and to make India a malnourishment free country. The Bill, in effect, addresses nothing except making a cosmetic change from already existing schemes.
These appalling levels of malnourishment are not just due to the limited access to food and healthcare but due to extremely low level of food grain consumption, particularly, women and children in poor households. Thus the Food Security Bill refers to a life-cycle approach in ensuring access to necessary quantity and quality of nutritious food. This implies that attention should be paid to the nutrition, particularly of women, from conception to childbirth and childcare. Because the first three years of life are most crucial for nutritional well-being, and damage done by inadequate nourishment at the early stage is very hard to reverse. So, this is the period should be under the Integrated Child Development Service instead of Public Distribution System.
Merely providing cheap food grains doesn’t guarantee nutrition. This requires a balanced intake of calories, protein, fats and essential micronutrients as well as attention to be paid on childcare, women’s education, clean water, hygiene, sanitation, basic healthcare. Further, it also needs focus on the nutrition-related services like maternity entitlements, nutrition counseling, breastfeeding support and treatment of severe malnutrition in children. These requirements need to be addressed in an integrated way, which can actually help in eradicating hunger and malnutrition and the consequent adverse impact on the health of children, women and men. The Bill considers only one aspect of food and nutritional security, i.e., economic access to desired calories.
The Bill focuses on supplying wheat and rice, and coarse food-grains. In reality food grains alone does not constitute food. What about other foods and nutrients? What about protein requirement? Take for example of pulses which is the single most protein supplement food for millions of Indians. But the provision of food includes only rice and wheat not other items like pulses, edible oils, sugar, and salt. Because it is a good balance between the staple food like rice, wheat and pulses, the staple food provides enough carbohydrates and the pulses provides enough proteins that leads to a healthy and active life.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recommended balanced diet comprising of cereals, pulses, vegetables, oil, sugar, milk and fruits, which roughly comes to around 2100 kcal (urban) and 2400 kcal (rural). For cereals alone, the ICMR dietary norms recommend 330 grams of cereal or 1000 kcal 1000 kcal per person per day. The total requirement of cereals per person per month would be 11 kg and that for a family of five would be 55 kg. But the food security Bill offers only 166 grams per person per day or 542 kcal despite well aware about the Suresh Tendulkar Committee recommendation of 1800 kcal per capita. The recommended quantity of grains is not enough for even subsistence level of living which is supposed to be a balanced diet comprising of cereals, pulses, edible oils, sugar that fulfills the minimum 1700 Kcal recommended by ICMR.
On the other hand, on coverage, at present we have four different Below Poverty Line (BPL) numbers, namely, 28 per cent BPL by Planning Commission’s conventional estimation, 37 per cent by Planning Commission’s Suresh Tendulkar committee, 50 per cent but says it could be 80 per cent in terms of calorie norms by Rural development ministry’s NC Saxena Committee, 80 per cent by National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector’s Arjun Sengupta Committee. Still the government is in a state of bewilderment over choosing a BPL number. Social support is above poverty line because malnourishment rate is much higher than the poverty estimates in India. The BPL census is solely to identify households eligible for the entitlements and other benefits. The government therefore, must accept the Saxena Committee proposed coverage for BPL number which actually reflects the true colour of India, in terms of hunger and under-nourishment.
Food Security Bill is supposed to transform the national image. But the government is proceeding in the opposite direction and in a hurry to pass the Bill, ignoring the root causes of hunger and leaving untouched the structural roots of malnutrition burden. This clearly implies the government tries to minimising its own obligations. Because the revised Bill even failed to match the existing state food security laws; for instance, the BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh passed a far well-defined Food Security Act so far, which covers 90 per cent of the population and added many essential food commodities in the act. Tamil Nadu provides 20 kg of rice free of cost to all ration-card holders in the state, although without legal entitlements. It also maintains that it has a better scheme which is universal unlike the UPA’s Bill. If at all the government pushes through its Bill, then a third of the population will remain outside its ambit. Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal seek the Bill’s universal application. Even Congress ruled states like Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Maharashtra have also expressed the same feelings.
Even today the fate of the Bill is continued to hang in balance due to lack of political will and commitment. It had enough time to address policy issues that might have posed hurdles in its implementation as it is tabled in the parliament in 2011. The worst sufferers from malnutrition and hunger are particularly Bihar, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where 42 percent of children under five are underweight and 59 percent are stunted which are well above the national average. The inattention of passing the Bill at the early stages may be due to unsuitability of the political time table of the UPA, because interestingly all these states, except Rajasthan, are ruled by non-Congress parties for long and its position stand at third and fourth places in these states politics.
However, it is the time to bury all political difference and ensure a healthy and productive life to every child and citizen. Thus the government must ensure two things. One, provide subsidized essential food items for balanced diets, both cereals and non-cereals of pulses, edible oil, sugar and salts, that can provide minimum 1700 calorie per capita as recommended by the ICMR guideline that is slightly lower than Tendulkar Committee estimation of 1800 calorie. Two, the Bill stipulates 67 per cent will receive subsidized food. Is the government ready to accept 67 per cent are poor in India? If it so, then NC Saxena Committee observed that 80 per cent of the population is below poverty line. Therefore, expand coverage to those who need it most. The Bill in the current shape may restrict from starvation death but hardly help in countering acute hunger and malnourishment in India.
Dr. Niranjan Chichuan did MA, M.phil & Ph.D in JNU and Ph.D specialization on Political Economy. Currently he is working as a Fellow at Lokashraya Foundation, a New Delhi based research organization and my working area is food security.
Comments are moderated
