Food Security - Some thoughts

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)