Food Security – Some thoughts
One of the things that I vividly
remember from the village visits that we use to have every week as District
Collectors was groups of visibly poor people queuing before you and asking for
Lal Cards or Old age pensions. Lal Cards was the name given for the pinkish red
Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) ration cards which entitled beneficiary families to
23 kgs of wheat at Rs 2 per kg and 12 kgs of rice at Rs 3 per kg. It was issued
to the poorest 25% families in a village. Those not lucky to get these cards
got the Yellow Below Poverty Line (BPL) ration cards or the White colored Above
Poverty Line (APL) cards. The BPL card holders got the same amount of grains at
a higher cost – Rs 4.65 per kg for wheat and Rs 6.15 per kg for rice. APL
families paid higher and very often chose not to get grains for the Public
Distribution System. The socio economic condition of the villages were such
that there was very little difference between the AAY and the BPL beneficiaries
and in some cases there were clear cases of more vulnerable sections being
given the BPL cards rather than AAY cards for obvious reasons. It was solely based
on the field verification done by the village accountants (patwaris) or village
development officers.
Faced with such poor people, we
were always faced with a dilemma as there was no way we could have got them
what they wanted – even if they looked deserving – as the district quota and grain
allotments were fixed. All of them seemed to deserve the AAY cards, but it was
not easy to knock out any existing beneficiaries. We did write to the State
Governments for more AAY cards, but it didn’t happen.
To this extent, the Food Security
Bill expands the basket by letting more people access food grains at Rs 2 per
kg and Rs 3 per kg. Thus objective of the bill of providing food security is
laudable. The simplest way to do would have been to give the red AAY cards to
all BPL card holders or those who would have qualified as per a criterion. However,
the bill doesn’t do this. It talks of a per person entitlement and allocation. If
you read the bill - it broadly says that all people identified to be provided
subsidized food grains will be given 5 kg per person of grains at Rs 2 for wheat
and Rs 3 per kg for rice. It also says that the ongoing Antyodaya Anna Yojana
(AAY) will continue. Thus the AAY households will allow the poorest of the poor
families to get 35 kg of food grains at Rs 2 for wheat and Rs 3 per kg for
rice. Some states have further subsidized AAY to give free food grains or at Rs
1 per kg. The basic problem in this scheme has been poor identification of
beneficiaries, which is done by the village accountants or patwaris who are government
functionaries at the grassroots. FSB tries to circumvent the problem of poor
identification by making it inclusive - by covering almost two thirds of the
population which it hopes will ensure that the real poor will not be left out.
However, given both AAY and FSB, it may happen that a not so poor family of 10,
included under FSB will get 50 kgs of grains and a real poor family under AAY
will only get 35 kgs. The issue of identification of beneficiaries under FSB or
AAY will still remain with the village accountants who will only exercise their
discretion on a consideration. So the core problem of governance and
accountability is not being addressed. The FSB bill does talk of a grievance
redressal mechanism but the sheer magnitude of the problem may result in too
many grievances and may ultimately not yield the desired results. It’s not that
efficient implementation of PDS cannot be done. States like Chhattisgarh have
used technology for proper implementation of PDS and it does work. The per
person FSB entitlements do indicate that the long term plan may be to move
towards cash transfers rather than expand the business of the humongously
corrupt FCI and PDS network. What the bill could have done was to lay down the
roadmap of merging AAY and FSB. The two parallel schemes will be an implementation
nightmare.
The other key issue is how do we
expedite cash transfers. Full proof cash transfers require everyone to have the
Aadhaar numbers which is going to take time. However, Aadhaar is only a half-baked
tech solution if we don’t address the key governance problem of beneficiary
identification upfront. Cash transfers will resolve inefficiencies and
corruption in grain procurement and transportation, but the key issue of
beneficiary identification - who gets how much - will remain.
As for grains under FSB, another
issue that comes up is how do we ensure proper nutrition for the really poor.
One person needs around 10 kgs of grains per month. With almost 67% of the
population covered under, we would need to procure massive quantities of food
grains to provide for people who don't really deserve. This massive off take of
grains by FCI will result in shortages in the open market which will result in
higher prices. Thus the real poor will have to spend more to meet their
additional requirements. And if they are not able to afford that, it will defeat
the objectives of food security.
How do we address these issues?
I would feel that what we need to
do is to meet the objectives of FSB by expanding the scope of AAY to cover more
people, say around 35-40% people who are the most deserving. We need to provide
for may be 10 kgs of grains per person. AAY allocations should also be made per
person if the long term goal is to move towards cash transfers – we should say
upfront that as districts get 100% Aadhaar enabled, we will move to cash
transfers and in 5 years, there will be only cash transfers with no food grain
procurement or distribution. To make things better, we must use mobile phones,
SMS, IVRS and mass media to disseminate information about grain entitlements,
distribution and movement. There would need to be zero tolerance towards wrong beneficiary
identification and grievances will have to be handled within 2-3 weeks. With
effective governance reform and use of technology and involving citizens, we
will be able to make it work.
Abhishek Singh
(Views are personal)
