NAC sticks to its guns on food law

In fact,the NAC on Friday approved a “Framework Note” outlining the details for the implementation of its own recommendations sidelining the suggestions of dilution of recommendations by the Rangarajan panel.

The stand-off is set to delay the proposed legislation from getting introduced in Parliament in the forthcoming Budget session. An indication of this came with NAC announcing that it will take the issue further only after public consultations on its recommendations during its next meeting scheduled in the middle of the session on February 26.

“NAC approved the Framework Note. Further,it decided that before the draft Bill is taken up for consideration by the NAC,the approved Framework Note shall be placed on the website inviting comments. The next meeting of NAC is scheduled to be held on 26 February,2011,” said the official communique issued after the NAC meeting.

The NAC,in its recommendations in October,had asked the government to provide legal entitlement of 35 kg foodgrains to 46 per cent of rural population and 28 per cent of urban population,described as “priority group”,at Rs 3 a kg for rice,Rs 2 per kg for wheat and Rs 1 per kg for millets per family per month.

In addition,it had recommended the proposed national food security legislation to provide for legal entitlement of 20 kg foodgrains per month to 44 per cent of rural population and 22 per cent of urban population at a price not exceeding 50 per cent of the MSP.

However,the Rangarajan panel had favoured legal entitlement to only priority category,while the less favoured options suggested by it were prefaced with a caution that the legal coverage suggested by the NAC can be ensured only at the expense of entitlement for general category.