FOOD SECURITY;

According to the world food summit of 1996 food security is the situation when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.

The national advisory council (NAC) struck a compromise between the political promise and economic pragmatism to finalise the contours of the national food security bill paving the way for a likely roll- out from the next fiscal year.

While the proposal of universalisation of food security has been shelved, the NAC has recommended legislative backing to meet the nutritional needs of vulnerable groups.

The NAC abandoned an initial proposal for universal implementation of food security in one- fourth of the country in th first phase. It has been replaced with a differential but legal entitlment for about 75 per cent of population. The NAC has called for exclusion of 25 per cent population (10  per cent form rural areas and 50 per cent in urban areas) from the propsed right to food.

The “legal entitlement” for child and maternal nutirtion would mean providing legislative backing for existing schemes such as the mid-day meal scheme, maternity benefit schemes and Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS)along with launching programmes for “new components” like community kitchens for feeding destitutes, vulnerable groups and street children.

While the NAC recommendation does not use the exixting differentiation of below poverty line and above poverty line households, it has called them “priority households” and “general households” for the purpose of the proposed legislation. The criteria for this new differentiation is likely to be set by Planning Commission.

The NAC has recommendd to provide the following “legal entitlemnts”:

·         Rural Priority Group: 35 kg food-grains to 46 per cent of rural population at rs 3 a kg for rice, Rs 2 a kg for wheat and Rs 1 a kg for millets per month.

·         Urban Priority Group: 35 kg of foodgrains to 28 per cent of urban population at Rs 3 a kg for rice, Rs 2 a kg for wheat and Rs 1 a kg for millets per month.

·         Rural General Group: 20 kg foodgrains per month ot 44 per cent of rural population at a price not exceeding 50 per cent of the MSP.

·         Urban General Group: 20 kg foodgrains per month to 22 per cent of rural population at a price not exceeding 50 per cent of the MSP.

·         Special group: Children, street children, pregnant mothers, destitutes and vulnerable groups.

·         Excluded: 10 per cent of rural population, 50 per cent of urban population.

·         Fixed: prices til the end of 12^th five-year plan in 2017.

Incidentally, the 46 per cent rural priority households recommended by the NAC  is only slightly more than the 41.8 per cent rural BPL families estimated by te Tendulkar Committee. Similarly, the 28 per cent urban priority households is slightly more than the 25.5 urban BPL families estimated by the Tendulkar committee based on 2004-05 poverty estimates.