India's food security bill: an inadequate remedy?

India has an over abundance of food grains stocked in warehouses, yet millions of India's poor are left without food. Development practitioners and NGOs are in favour of disbanding the current food security system, the public distribution system (PDS), saying the government should come up with a new policy altogether so that the poor are able to benefit.

The government's national food security bill proposes to provide food at a subsidised rate to nearly two-thirds of the country's 1.2 billion population. However, policy pundits are against such ordinance saying there are major drawbacks in the bill.

The fundamental problem is of undernutrition. Veteran development economist Jean Drèze, says that ideally the bill should be able to protect everyone from hunger, and can make a significant contribution to the elimination of undernutrition.

But ending undernutrition requires many other interventions too, related to health care, safe water, and sanitation. Nevertheless, some provisions of the bill could have a significant nutritional impact, for instance children's entitlements to nutritious food. Other provisions, such as those relating to the PDS, are better seen as a form of social security than as a nutritional intervention specifically, Drèze says.

Unicef too talks of misplaced government priorities. It states that the fundamental problem facing India is malnutrition.

There are 61 million children chronically undernourished, and 8 million children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in India. Therefore, the focus needs to be on the right to adequate nutrition, beyond the right to food – as the bill indicates.

"Undernutrition jeopardises children's survival, health, growth and development, and it slows national progress towards development goals," says María Fernández Ruiz de Larrinaga, communication specialist, Unicef India.

To address nutrition security, a comprehensive approach is required, which includes improving the diets and nutrient intake of children and women; ensuring access to essential health services and improving hygiene and sanitation; improving women's education and decision making; and improving poverty reduction and safety net programmes for the most vulnerable.

"The bill also needs to address children's right to the correct food. The maximum affect of this food poverty resulting from a failed foodgrains distribution system is faced by women and children," says Larrinaga. Women and children are getting less food every day because of gender inequality and discrimination, Unicef says.

Undernutrition in India happens very early in life; about one-third of children are already undernourished at birth because of nutrition deprivation during prenatal life due to the poor nutrition situation of women before and during pregnancy. Thereafter, poor feeding, care and hygiene practices in the first two years of life contribute to compound the situation.

"If this opportunity is missed, the window closes, and it closes forever perpetuating to an inter-generational cycle of undernutrition and deprivation," says Right to Food Campaign, an umbrella organisation of NGOs, while questioning government's failure to address this aspect in the bill.

Farmers' bodies too oppose the bill saying it would lead to nationalisation of agriculture by making the government the biggest buyer, hoarder and seller of foodgrains. There is a clear feeling that this would distort the market mechanism and reduce the bargaining power of farmers. The bill makes no provisions for production of food or for support of small and marginal farmers who are food producers.

Drèze says a single bill cannot address all food related issues. Small and marginal farmers have certainly been left behind in the growth process, and need various kinds of public support, related for instance to power supply, economic infrastructure, credit facilities, land rights, and environmental protection.

The main objection to the bill is that it does not specify any timeframe for the rolling out of the entitlements, says Kavita Srivastava, national convenor of Peoples' Union of Civil Liberty.

It continues with a targeted PDS, excluding 33% of the population from accessing it as a right, giving scope to large exclusion of the poor in the country as a whole. The improved framework of single pricing in the present bill over the dual pricing under the existing 'above poverty line - below poverty line' system is undermined by the exclusion of a third of the country.

While the Indian Council for Medical Research recommends that an adult requires 14kg of food grains per month and children 7kg; the bill provides entitlements to 5kg per person per month, thus ensuring only 166g of cereal per person per day. Also, the bill provides only for cereals with no entitlements to basic food necessities such as pulses and edible oil required to combat malnutrition.

According to Harsh Mander, a social activist and a member of the campaign, the bill allows the entry of private contractors and commercial interests in the supply of food in the integrated child development scheme. Also tying maternal entitlements to conditions (like two-child norm) discriminates mothers who have more children.

Concerns remain over PDS, which many fear will intensify corruption. Drèze, however, says the government should focus on productivity enhancement rather than on subsidising food at the expense of taxpayers. There have been many positive experiences of PDS reform during the last few years in specific states like Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha among others. These experiences provide a reasonably clear roadmap for PDS reform across the country.

Some elements of that roadmap are included in the bill like inclusive coverage, clear entitlements, deprivatisation of ration shops, computerisation of records, among others. Beyond that, he says, it is best to leave it to the states to reform the PDS in their own way, instead of centralising PDS management.

Minister for food KV Thomas admits the flawed distribution system has made matters worse, and the purpose of the bill is to correct delivery mechansim.

"This is one of the many reasons that have led to malnourishment among women and children. Most social security schemes meant for them are either not reaching them or getting severely diluted due to leaks in the system," Thomas said.

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