Pawar lowers pitch against Food bill

Says enough foodgrains to implement it

Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) may continue to oppose the National Food Security bill, but Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, has lowered his pitch against the proposed legislation.

Pawar on Monday said that the Centre should not have any problem to spread the food security net proposed by the National Food Security bill (NFSB) as the nation’s food-grain output broke the previous year’s record.

“This year, we will break last year's record by reaching 250 million tons of food-grains,” Agriculture Minister told journalists on the sidelines of the Kharif Conference 2012 here. “With this background, to implement the Food Security bill, I don’t see any problem,” he added.

Pawar has been a critic of the ambitious bill. He has also publicly expressed doubts over the implementation of the bill, which seeks to give over 63 per cent people of the country a legal entitlement to highly subsidised food-grains.

The NFSB was introduced in Lok Sabha on December 22 last and is now being vetted by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution. The Congress hopes that the bill, if passed by the Parliament, would help it in 2014 general elections as much as the MNREGS in 2009.

Asked if the present version of the Bill could be passed by Parliament, Pawar said: “It is before the Parliament. We will talk about it when the Parliament gives a final shape to it.”
Pawar had on several occasions expressed his concerns over the additional subsidy burden the NFSB would put on the government and its possible implications.

The Agriculture Minister had last month also said that the NFSB could not be implemented in its letter and spirit without overhauling the existing Public Distribution System.

The proponents of the NFSB in the UPA government, however, argue that additional financial implication of the NFSB would not be too much. “With the current coverage and entitlement and also taking into account estimated allocations under other welfare schemes, the food subsidy for 2012-13 is expected to be about Rs 88997 Crore.

However, if we were to just update the coverage under the Targeted Public Distribution System using 2011 census, the subsidy will be Rs 109795 Crore. In comparison, the estimated subsidy requirement under the NFSB is estimated to be Rs 112205 Crore, which means an additional amount of Rs 2410 Crore,” said union Food Minister K V Thomas.

While 75 per cent of the rural population will be covered by the food security net that the proposed legislation seeks to lay down, 46 per cent of them will be designated as priority households. Half of the urban population will be covered by the proposed legislation, while 28 per cent of them will be tagged as priority households.