Organise a debate on food security of India, its need and efforts.
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right to food is finally becoming a lively political issue in India. Aware of the forthcoming national elections in 2014, political parties are competing to demonstrate – or at least proclaim — their commitment to food security. In a country where endemic undernutrition has been accepted for too long as natural, this is a breakthrough of sorts.
The rhetoric, however, is not always matched by understanding of the issues, let alone action. The National Food Security Bill taken up by Parliament in December 2011 in pursuance of electoral promises made by India’s governing coalition, the United Progressive Alliance, is at the heart of the current debate over food security. The bill was to be put to vote during the last session of Parliament, along with a series of amendments based on the report of a parliamentary standing committee. Opposition parties, however, continuously disrupted the proceedings under one pretext or another.
Exasperated by this obstruction, and quite possibly hoping to win votes, the government recently promulgated the National Food Security Ordinance 2013. The ordinance effectively activates the bill, but it must be ratified by Parliament within six weeks of its first sitting or else the bill will lapse. The use of emergency powers to promulgate this ordinance is being criticized as undemocratic, and rightly so, but most political parties bear some responsibility for this outcome.
The bill is a modest initiative. It consolidates various food-related programs and entitlements that have made gradual headway during the last decade. Provisions of the bill dealing with food grain entitlements under the public distribution system have grabbed most of the attention. Children’s entitlements, however, are possibly more important. These include cooked midday meals for all school-going children and nutritious food (either a cooked meal or a take-home ration) for all children below the age of 6. These child nutrition programs are already in place; they are mandatory under Supreme Court orders. Permanent legal entitlements could strengthen and energize these initiatives.
The bill also provides for maternity benefits – 1,000 rupees ($16) per month for six months — for all pregnant women. This is a small step, and since the benefits are not indexed to inflation, their real value could erode very quickly. Nevertheless, the principle of universal maternity benefits is important and provides a useful foothold for further action.
The bill is effectively what remains of bolder proposals initially discussed at the National Advisory Council. The council’s early drafts of the bill included many provisions that were quietly dropped, one by one, first by the council itself and later by the government: social security pensions, special entitlements for vulnerable groups, community kitchens and strong accountability measures, among others.
Ironically, even as the central government pruned and diluted the council’s proposals, the eastern state of Chhattisgarh, ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition party, built on them and prepared its own Chhattisgarh Food Security Act, enacted in December 2012. Chhattisgarh’s much stronger legislation is in place and a recent survey by the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi suggests that food-related programs in Chhattisgarh are quite effective. This experience in one of India’s poorest states helps to dispel the notion that the food security proposals are impractical or unaffordable.
Some provisions in the bill are based on considerable experience and evidence. The value and effectiveness of India’s school meal program are reasonably well established. The program, inspired by Tamil Nadu’s pioneering initiatives, covers more than 100 million children and has steadily improved over time. In several states, for instance, the school-meal menu now includes eggs, a very valuable source of animal protein for growing children. In Tamil Nadu, schoolchildren get an egg every day. This is not a trivial matter in a country where millions of poor children rarely get a chance to eat an egg.
Several studies have documented the wide-ranging benefits of school meals in India, from higher school attendance and better child nutrition to remunerative employment for rural women and the erosion of caste barriers. The case for a permanent school meal program under the law is widely accepted.
right to food is finally becoming a lively political issue in India. Aware of the forthcoming national elections in 2014, political parties are competing to demonstrate – or at least proclaim — their commitment to food security. In a country where endemic undernutrition has been accepted for too long as natural, this is a breakthrough of sorts.
The rhetoric, however, is not always matched by understanding of the issues, let alone action. The National Food Security Bill taken up by Parliament in December 2011 in pursuance of electoral promises made by India’s governing coalition, the United Progressive Alliance, is at the heart of the current debate over food security. The bill was to be put to vote during the last session of Parliament, along with a series of amendments based on the report of a parliamentary standing committee. Opposition parties, however, continuously disrupted the proceedings under one pretext or another.
Exasperated by this obstruction, and quite possibly hoping to win votes, the government recently promulgated the National Food Security Ordinance 2013. The ordinance effectively activates the bill, but it must be ratified by Parliament within six weeks of its first sitting or else the bill will lapse. The use of emergency powers to promulgate this ordinance is being criticized as undemocratic, and rightly so, but most political parties bear some responsibility for this outcome.
The bill is a modest initiative. It consolidates various food-related programs and entitlements that have made gradual headway during the last decade. Provisions of the bill dealing with food grain entitlements under the public distribution system have grabbed most of the attention. Children’s entitlements, however, are possibly more important. These include cooked midday meals for all school-going children and nutritious food (either a cooked meal or a take-home ration) for all children below the age of 6. These child nutrition programs are already in place; they are mandatory under Supreme Court orders. Permanent legal entitlements could strengthen and energize these initiatives.
The bill also provides for maternity benefits – 1,000 rupees ($16) per month for six months — for all pregnant women. This is a small step, and since the benefits are not indexed to inflation, their real value could erode very quickly. Nevertheless, the principle of universal maternity benefits is important and provides a useful foothold for further action.
The bill is effectively what remains of bolder proposals initially discussed at the National Advisory Council. The council’s early drafts of the bill included many provisions that were quietly dropped, one by one, first by the council itself and later by the government: social security pensions, special entitlements for vulnerable groups, community kitchens and strong accountability measures, among others.
Ironically, even as the central government pruned and diluted the council’s proposals, the eastern state of Chhattisgarh, ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition party, built on them and prepared its own Chhattisgarh Food Security Act, enacted in December 2012. Chhattisgarh’s much stronger legislation is in place and a recent survey by the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi suggests that food-related programs in Chhattisgarh are quite effective. This experience in one of India’s poorest states helps to dispel the notion that the food security proposals are impractical or unaffordable.
Some provisions in the bill are based on considerable experience and evidence. The value and effectiveness of India’s school meal program are reasonably well established. The program, inspired by Tamil Nadu’s pioneering initiatives, covers more than 100 million children and has steadily improved over time. In several states, for instance, the school-meal menu now includes eggs, a very valuable source of animal protein for growing children. In Tamil Nadu, schoolchildren get an egg every day. This is not a trivial matter in a country where millions of poor children rarely get a chance to eat an egg.
Several studies have documented the wide-ranging benefits of school meals in India, from higher school attendance and better child nutrition to remunerative employment for rural women and the erosion of caste barriers. The case for a permanent school meal program under the law is widely accepted.
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