Wednesday, April 3, 2013
The Food Security bill 2013 has brought in a vast amount of changes. It addresses the issue of hoarding of food grains against starvation of thousands of poor in the country.
The last food security bill, the food security bill 2011, was a huge disappointment. According to the article in The Times of India, 'The Big Letdown of the Food Security Bill' dated October 18, 2012, "The problem is that the bill does not mention how the government will identify people in each group. Since lawmakers have passed the task of identifying the poor to individual states without saying what methods to use, officials will likely continue to conduct poverty surveys in an erratic, unsystematic way. Critics say this would leave many people out of the public food system and to avoid this lawmakers should allow all citizens to buy cheap grains from public shops."
This year, the food security bill promises maternity benefits of Rs. 6,000 in installments to pregnant and lactating women as against that of Rs. 1000 in the Food Security bill of 2011. Child benefit remains the same with the mid-day meal scheme.
One of the major reasons for the failure of such plans is lack of focus of the agricultural sector. A huge majority exists in the farming sector which loses out on during the food price escalation period. In spite of producing abundant food grains, the poor in the country are not being fed adequately as most of it gets wasted in the absence of storage facilities. There can be no bigger shame for us.
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