NAC digs its heels in row over Food Bill

The NAC, which met here on Friday, identified eight highly vulnerable groups of population for their mandatory inclusion in the categories to be covered by the food security net to be cast by the proposed Act. It said that highest priority should be given to bring SCs/STs under the net after inclusion of the highly vulnerable groups in the priority households to be covered by the legislation.

The Gandhi-led panel, which was constituted to set the agenda of the UPA government in the social sector, also took the row to the public domain by posting its framework note on the draft National Food Security Bill on its website and inviting comments from the people.

The NAC discussed the Rangarajan Committee’s suggestions on diluting the Bill’s provisions, but refrained from commenting on it publicly as the PMO had not forwarded it the panel’s report which was put in the public domain last week.
Sources said a majority of the NAC members strongly opposed the committee’s suggestion that the Bill should legally guarantee supply of food grains at subsidised prices only to the “really needy households”, while the rest be covered by “an executive order with a varying quantum depending on the availability of food grains”.
The panel had suggested that the legally entitled population might be defined as the people below the official poverty line plus 10 per cent of their total number. The NAC remained firm on its stand that the Bill ensure legal entitlement to subsidised food grains for at least 72 per cent and 75 per cent of the country’s population in two phases — first phase in 2011 and the final phase in 2014.

The panel said the government should “specify the criteria for categorisation of population into ‘priority’ and ‘general’ households.

It noted that the food security net should cover particularly vulnerable tribal groups, SC groups that mostly suffered discrimination, households headed by single women or minors or having disabled people as sole bread-earners or having bonded labourers as members, destitute households dependent only on alms and homeless households.