09 February 2013, 06:37 PM IST
Any attempt to further extend benefits of the food security act are doomed to fail
The reports that the UPA is set to revise the National Food Security Bill to further extend coverage of the subsidised food benefits to even more people are surprising to put it very mildly. This is because the most recent evidence shows that the provisions of the existing bill, which proposes to extend the supply of subsidised food to 75% of the rural and 50% of the urban populations, are already too ambitious and far beyond the levels that can be realistically attempted. However, surprisingly rather than pare down the benefits to realistic levels the report indicate that the UPA now plans to further extend coverage to 75% of the entire population in the 250 backward districts and 90% of the entire population in the 13 poor states.
These are almost impossible targets as this will require doubling or even trebling the resources that are currently allocated for providing subsidised food. The large gap between the grand targets of the food security bill and the grain delivered by the existing PDS is brought out by the recent NSS survey. In fact these estimates published last week shows that that only a little more than a third of the rural population and around one fifth of the urban population are currently covered by the existing public distribution system (PDS).
For instance the survey number shows that the PDS grain is currently available to only to 39.1% of the rural households in the case of rice and to 27.6% of households in the case of wheat in 2009-10. Similarly in the urban areas the PDS coverage, as depicted from the NSS consumption survey, was even lower with the numbers being a mere 20.5% and 17.6% in the case of rice and wheat respectively. So any food security bill that attempts to almost double the coverage in rural areas and by a higher level in urban areas is surely going to be very difficult given the current resources and governance capabilities. It would require a not only a substantial increase in food subsidy spending in the government budget but also a sizable ramp up of food stocks that is most improbable in the current scenario where excessively large stocks procured by the government is already pushing up open market prices of grains beyond affordable levels.
Problem of bridging this large gap in coverage is easier said than done because the food security bill also mandates that per capita grain delivery is to be raised to 3kg and to 7 kg respectively for general and priority group households which are many time more than the amount of grain currently delivered by the existing PDS. This is because the NSS report shows that the amount of grain supplied by the PDS in 2009-10 is only a fraction of the grain supply targets laid out in the bill. For instance the amount of grain currently supplied to rural household s was only 2kg per person per month in rural areas and a more minuscule 1.2 kg per person per month in urban areas. Raising it to the 7 kg per person per month in the case of priority households and to 3 kg per capita per month in general household in both rural and urban areas would indeed require herculean efforts.
But what is more astonishing are the reports of the UPA leaderships new plans to further extend coverage to 75% of the entire population in the 250 backward districts and 90% of the entire population in the 13 poorest states including the north eastern states. This is mere wishful thinking given that PDS coverage in some of the poorer states is at dismally low levels. For example in the case of Bihar the coverage of the current PDS system in rural and urban areas is merely restricted to 12.2% and 4.24% of the households in the case of rice and 12.7% and 5.4% of the households in the case of wheat. Raising it to cover three fourth of the total population would require herculean efforts for a sustained period and also a lot more resources.
So the overall impression that one gains is that a further extension of the food subsidies as envisaged by the food security bill will not only require long sustained and well funded efforts but also a sizable step up in food stock levels beyond all feasible levels. These are difficult propositions even in the best of times and well nigh impossible in the current situation when the government is finding it hard to make ends meet.
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