Opinion Right way for right to food

These are not new and the Planning Commission has used them since at least the Ninth Plan (1997-2002). Across the Ninth and Tenth Plans,assorted parameters were used — ownership of land,possession of consumer durables,type of house,literacy,means of livelihood,access to water and sanitation and so on. While one can add and subtract parameters,there can be no debate that these are reasonable indicators of deprivation. However,using them implies two things: first,getting away from NSS; and second,acceptance that poverty is an individual-cum-household characteristic,imperfectly captured in collective categories like caste,gender,ethnicity and religion. To state the obvious,using collective categories leads to a double mistake — including (because they are part of the collective) those who should be excluded; and excluding (because they aren’t part of the collective) those who should be included. This government’s mindset,across policy interventions,is based on collective generalisations. Therefore,regardless of what the Planning Commission comes up with,the EGOM will remain in a cleft stick. In six years,counting from 2004,the government hasn’t progressed at all on identifying BPL and one should have resolved the issue before plugging it into the president’s address.

The second problem concerns the definition of food. As a digression,there is an all-embracing definition of food in the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (1954),where food is defined as “any article used as food or drink for human consumption other than drugs and water”. The president’s address to Parliament also mentioned the Food Security Act and interpreted food as rice or wheat. (Whether it should be 25 kg or more and whether it should be Rs 3 per kg or less is a separate matter.) Notice there has been a switch away from cereal consumption even among the poor — towards fruits and vegetables,dairy products,eggs and poultry. How can food then be defined as rice and wheat? It should include coarse grains,fruits and vegetables,pulses,sugar,edible oils,even dairy products,eggs and poultry.

India’s performance is pathetic on the Global Hunger Index,assorted other publications by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the UN (Human Development Report included). This becomes worse with food price inflation and medium-term reasons behind increases in food prices (environmental changes,income and consumption growth,stagnant supply) aren’t going to go away. How can one have a narrow and strait-jacketed definition of food as rice and wheat alone? There must be a universal definition of food. And because transition from collective to individual/ household-based determination of poverty is politically unacceptable,there must be universal access to food security. Targeting is unacceptable. To again restate the obvious,problems with the definition of food should also have been anticipated before plugging this into the president’s address.

Should one do a calculation that has been done several times before? An annual food subsidy bill of Rs 56,000 crore and a BPL population of 300 million means a subsidy of Rs 1,867 per capita per year,Rs 156 per month. With five people per poor household,that is Rs 778 per month per household. Even if one assumes retail price of Rs 20 a kg for rice/ wheat (considerably higher than the procurement price),this translates into almost 39 kg a month,higher than the promised 25 kg and higher than the Supreme Court’s 35 kg. Earlier,only economists used to criticise the PDS (by implication,also FCI) as inefficient and corrupt. Now a Supreme Court-appointed committee has also done so.

There was a National Development Council meeting on December 19,2007 and P. Chidambaram,UPA-I’s finance minister,said it cost the government Rs 3.65 to transfer Re 1 of food to the poor. Even more directly,here is another quote from Chidambaram as finance minister: “In the Tenth Plan document,the Planning Commission had suggested that a system of distributing food stamps should be tested on a pilot basis. Every eligible family will be entitled to collect its monthly quota of food stamps from a designated distribution centre,and such stamps could then be used to buy foodgrains from any food shop.

I propose to introduce a pilot scheme for distributing food stamps,instead of distributing food through fair price shops,in two or three contiguous districts in a selected state.”

Most of us have forgotten,but that is a quote from UPA-I’s first Budget in 2004-05. Stated differently,the agenda for conditional cash transfers (even if we don’t accept unconditional cash transfers) has been pending for six years,since food stamps can be interpreted as a system of conditional quasi-cash transfers. The agenda for identifying the poor has been pending since at least the Ninth Plan,if not earlier. It is because UPA-I didn’t address them that UPA-II’s EGOM is now caught in a cleft stick. The 1991-92 Budget speech is historic because it unleashed reforms and concluded with a quote from Victor Hugo to the effect that no power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come. One of its minor details was that it abolished the sugar subsidy. During UPA-I,the prime minister mentioned subsidy-targeting in 22 of his speeches. Had some of it translated into action,the EGOM would have had an easier time. After all,the right to education can be interpreted as government abdicating its role and opting for private sector delivery. That’s what we should do with right to food too.

The writer is a Delhi-based economist

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