What's holding back the hand that feeds?

The World’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: An economic superpower but a nutritional weakling. That’s how the Institute of Development Studies in the UK described India. To hammer the point in, the International Food policy Research Institute ranked India 66 out of 88 nations on its Global Hunger Index in 2008. That means, while India has a better food policy than Bangladesh, we are worse off than Sub-Saharan countries like Kenya, Cameroon and the war-torn regions of the Congo and Sudan.
The Congress Party under Sonia Gandhi is trying to improve the situation, but it is facing opposition from several fronts including its own government.

The party is trying to push through the National Food Security Act (NFSA), a law that guarantees food security to every citizen. It spells out the specific entitlements, in terms of subsidised food grains that every citizen will receive. 

The Act, however, is caught in a bind between party and government, the bureaucracy and the state governments. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and vice-chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, are strong opponents of a subsidy-based approach to development. The government needs to balance welfare economics with fiscal prudence. In a concept note prepared by the nodal Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, the government has reduced the scope of the Act by guaranteeing food to only the poorest citizens, reduced beneficiaries among the poorest, cut the quantum of subsidised grain and passed primary (including administrative) responsibility largely to the states.

But states are shying away from the responsibility. Especially anti-incumbent states like Chattisgarh (Bharatiya Janata Party) and Bihar (Janata Dal – United). “The proposed act in its present form is going to be a Central Act, hence the primary responsibility of its implementation, as also the financial burden arising out of, should lie with the Central government,’’ protested Chattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh in a letter to the PM.

The policy is caught in a bind between the political logic of giving rights to the people and the administration’s reluctance to commit the kind of resources it needs and execution. “The administrative machinery is certainly not interested in making itself accountable to the people. The rights approach to social policy also has little resonance with most political parties, though some influential political leaders do take it seriously, if only because they recognise its popular appeal,” says development economist Jean Dreze, who has worked on framing the policy.

Conceptual Confusion
The country is facing a nutritional emergency. So when the Congress Party announced it would work for food security for all, it was widely welcomed. And when it was returned to power in May this year, the Party considered it as an endorsement of its welfare policies. The Congress’ National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) played a big role in its win and the Party is looking to replicate its success with the NFSA.

President Pratibha Patil reiterated the resolve in her address to the joint session of Parliament on June 4, 2009. “My government proposes to enact a new law — the National Food Security Act — that will provide a statutory basis for a framework which assures food security for all.”

That commitment wasn’t addressed properly. On the same day, the Food Ministry circulated its NFSA concept note that drastically reduced the character and scope of the policy. 

Preliminary estimates suggest the government will likely save at least Rs. 9,000 crore per year by reducing the prices and amount of grains. That is nearly a sixth of what food minister Sharad Pawar expects the government to spend on food subsidy this year. More money would be saved by restricting the number of beneficiaries.

The ministry proposed to reset the number of below poverty line or BPL families eligible for entitlements from 6.52 crore (based on 1993-94 poverty estimates) to 5.91 crore (2004-05 estimate). It wanted states to toe the line too.

The note wanted to disallow states from expanding the list of beneficiaries, even if the additional cost was borne by them. It noted rather grimly that states like Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu had expanded BPL lists and provided food grains at prices lower than public distribution system issue price. Therefore, it proposed “built-in penal provisions against such states.” The reaction to the note was strong.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar wrote to food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar on June 30 reminding him that it “may require a constitutional amendment to enable the Central Government to penalise state governments as no such provision exists under the Constitution presently.”
The strongest protest came from the Congress president herself.

In a letter of June 12 to the Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi wrote: “… One of the most prominent and important commitments made by our party in the 2009 Lok Sabha election manifesto relates to the enactment of an NFSA to ensure food security to the poor and vulnerable sections of the society. I am sending a copy of the draft legislation for your consideration.”

It proposed guaranteeing 35 kg of grain at Rs. 3 per month for all the targeted households, including Antyodaya Anna Yojana households (poorest of the poor), all BPL, and all destitute and vulnerable groups identified by the Act, such as the households of disabled people and occupationally vulnerable groups such as rag pickers.

In sharp contrast to the government proposal to abolish special nutritional welfare schemes like Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Mid-day Meal Scheme (MDMS), Gandhi’s advisors proposed to expand their scope by allowing people aged above 65 years, single women and the disabled to eat at the local ICDS and MDM centres in all rural areas. It proposed to double the quotas for maternity entitlements as well as all children aged below six and adolescent girls in ICDS centres.
Yet, the administration prevailed over the Party, at least for now.

“I am happy to announce that the work on National Food Security Act has begun in right earnest. This will ensure that every family living below the poverty line in rural or urban areas will be entitled by law to 25 kg of rice or wheat per month at Rs. 3 a kg,” finance minister Pranab Mukherjee announced in the Union budget a month later. At one stroke, the government chose to narrow the scope of entitlements — and also reduce the quota of food grains.
(Repeated attempts by Forbes India to meet officials at the Food ministry and Planning Commission proved futile. Faxed questionnaires, sent to the Prime Minister’s Office as well as Food ministry, too remained unanswered.)

A Finger on the Pulse
The reason why the Congress pushes for the rights-based approach at the Centre is the same that prompts some states to expand public distribution programmes beyond what the Centre requires them to: Giving rights to the people is politically profitable.

“States are closer to the people and know what must be done to survive,” says Biraj Patnaik, principal adviser to the Supreme Court commissioners on right to food.

Patnaik, a key NFSA campaigner, points out that parties that have managed to beat anti-incumbency in states — BJD in Orissa, DMK in Tamil Nadu, BJP in MP and Chhatisgarh and Congress in Andhra Pradesh — are those which have expanded the BPL list and subsidised food grains.

“Today Centre says that if you spend more than Rs. 17 in the urban areas (per day) and Rs. 12 in rural areas then you are above the poverty line. Many states do not agree,” he says.

International experts do not agree with the Indian approach. Ulrich Koester, professor of agricultural economics at Kiel University in Germany says a rights-based approach is not the best idea. “That’s a part of social policy — you are better off to help the poor by giving them income and they can decide what they want — whether it is food, health, shelter. If you want to help them, let them decide how to use their income. Their priorities may be different,” says Koester.

No country in the world has gone this far to adopt a rights-based approach on this scale. In Brazil, where the biggest such experiment was conducted since 2003, the legislation has not spelt out the entitlements.

By all indications, in the coming months, the pressure is likely to mount on the government to commit more resources to food security. As the legislation passes through its birth pangs, the world is closely watching this experiment.

Peter Timmer, Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Development Studies, emeritus, Harvard University, says it is not possible for a country to have sustained economic development without first establishing reliable food security at the macro level.

“India is trying to do that via a rights-based approach, which has never been tried before. Other Asian countries did it with rural-oriented development strategies that reached the poor. I am sceptical that the Indian approach can work,” says Timmer.

Additional reporting by Neelima Mahajan-Bansal