Food Security Ordinance gets Cabinet nod

The Cabinet cleared a proposal to promulgate an ordinance to pass the food security bill. This would ensure that 67% of the Indian population would get food grains at highly subsidised prices of Rs.3,Rs.2, Rs.1 per kg for rice, wheat and coarse grains, respectively. The pet project of the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is said to be a ploy to win votes for the upcoming elections in 2014.
After the ordinance, the bill would have to be cleared by the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. Ministry officials said there was ample availability of food grain and now the state governments will have to gear up.
Corresponding to the coverage of 75% rural and 50% of the urban population at an all India level, state-wise coverage will be determined by the central government. Tabled ahead of the monsoon session of the Parliament, the food security bill had been deferred in June and earlier during the Budget session of the Parliament with both the Opposition and the UPA leaders demanding a debate on the bill.
The poorest of the poor would continue to receive 35 kg foodgrains per household each month under the Antyodaya Anna Yajna at subsidised prices of Rs.3, Rs.2 and Rs.1. It is also proposed to protect the existing allocation of foodgrains to the states/ UTs, subject to it being restricted to an average annual offtake during the last three years.
At the proposed coverage of entitlement, total estimated annual foodgrain requirement is 61.23 million tonnes and estimated food subsidy for the Bill at 2013-14 costs around Rs.1,24,724 crore. Crisil’s research estimates suggest that the Food Security Bill could generate additional savings of around Rs.4,400 this year for each BPL household, which begins to purchase subsidised food.
End to Starvation?

• SONIA GANDHI’S PET PROJECT is said to be a ploy to win votes for the upcoming polls in 2014

• STATE GOVTS WILL NOW HAVE to identity beneficiaries via an open transparent criteria

• STATE-WISE COVERAGE WILL be determined by the Centre, corresponding to 75% of the rural and 50% of the urban coverage of the population

Critical of the hurried clearance of the Food Security ordinance, BJP President Rajnath Singh said the UPA government was just doing a "political gimmick in a hurry" before the 2014 general elections. Expressing surprise at why the government took the ordinance route instead of discussing the "serious Bill" in Parliament, Singh said, "The Lok Sabha election is near. The Congress-led UPA is taking populist measures. The Food Security Bill is one of them."
"They are bringing it through an ordinance. It is just a political gimmick in hurry," he alleged. He wondered what prevented the government from taking up the Bill "for the last nine years" and holding a debate in Parliament and said the BJP wants a debate on this. "This Bill has some lacunae. We want to pass it with some modifications. We want a debate on this," he said.
The ordinance on food security gives the country's two-third population the right to get 5 KG of foodgrains every month at highly subsidised rates of Rs 1-3 per KG.
The Union cabinet, which had last month deferred a decision on the issue following differences, approved promulgation of an ordinance to implement the Bill.The programme, when implemented, will be the biggest in the world with an estimated spending of Rs 125,000 crore annually on supply of about 62 million tonnes of rice, wheat and coarse cereals to 67 per cent of the population.