Political insecurity drives UPA to push food bill in a hurry
The UPA government has at last taken the ordinance route to implement the National Food Security Bill, which has been up in the air for almost four years without political unanimity on its provisions even among its allies.
The timing and the manner in which the ambitious measure has been pushed through when the monsoon session of Parliament is only weeks away raise the question whether the government is really sincere about the issue of hunger and food entitlement or is only targeting the electoral dividends in the run-up to elections.
For the ruling UPA, the Bill, which is Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s favourite project to give roughly 67% of the population a legal right over cheap food grains, is a commitment made in its 2009 manifesto and the government was acting on its promise.
But for the opposition, that takes a blatant stand that “my populist measures are good but not yours”, the pro-poor legislation is a measure that would go a long way in drawing political mileage for the Congress in 2014 just as the popular rural job guarantee scheme did for it in 2009.
So the ordinance route, an extraordinary move, considered legitimate only in situations of urgency, has turned the political climate hot with the UPA and the opposition getting ready for confrontation.
President Pranab Mukherjee too cleared the ordinance without delay, ending all speculation that in the wake of strong reservations over its present form expressed by the BJP, the Left and some other major parties he might defer his nod.
The ordinance, however, will have to be approved by Parliament within six months of its promulgation.
What remains to be seen is how the House will be debating the right to food. That should provide the people abundant food for thought as the House deliberations are likely to bring out the irony of the lawmakers playing politics on such an important legislative measure.
It will be a continuation of the battle of wits they have been engaged over the measure ever since it was first introduced in Parliament in 2011.
Although the UPA had promised this scheme in its 2004 election manifesto and repeated it in 2009, it has taken almost nine years to bring a concrete Bill.
Parliamentary consideration on the bill has been initiated with the standing committee submitting its recommendations and the government proposing amendments to the law.
After being listed on several occasions for discussion, members of Parliament began debating the bill in the last few days of the 2013 budget session.
The UPA government has not crowned itself with glory when it resorted to the option of ordinance, which will replace the food security law, pending in Parliament.
With the looming monsoon session of Parliament, it has shown utter disregard for the legislature whose job is to make laws.
Within the UPA, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar too has expressed some valid concerns and opined that having waited this long, the Congress could have waited two more weeks and got the Bill passed in the normal course.
The Constitution, of course, empowers the government to promulgate ordinances when situations call for urgent legal action.
But the new Bill cannot be described as urgent by any stretch of the imagination. What is perceptible is a political game.
Besieged by a series of scams and governance deficit, the politically insecure UPA is desperate to bring in the key Bill to salvage its image. It expects this to be a game-changer.
The opposition parties are in a bind because if they support the Bill, the Congress will walk away with the credit, and if they oppose, that will be an anti-poor act, costing them the votes of the poor.
The uncertainty surrounding the passage of the Bill in the monsoon session also must have prompted the government to rush with the ordinance.
With the next round of Assembly elections looming large, it wanted to avoid a situation where it would be trapped by the Model Code of Conduct and other such restrictions on the so-called largesse.
Now in case the Bill falls through in Parliament, the government will undoubtedly be able to claim that while it was sincere in wanting to reach food to the poorest of the poor, it was defeated in this mission by an insensitive opposition.
Either way it could be the winner.
The ordinance, however, will face its toughest test both on the ground and in parliament.
As a policy the Bill, that envisages supply of 5kg of rice, wheat and coarse cereals at Rs3, Rs2 and Re1 per kg, respectively, to people below the poverty line, is a good development and gives hope to the hungry.
But the efficacy and intent of this policy will be in the implementation, and there is scant faith in this government’s ability to carry out such a massive task efficiently and honestly, considering the logistics involved.
The existing public distribution system (PDS) is corrupt and ill-equipped to handle such a mammoth task.
Overhaul of the PDS and revitalisation of the agriculture sector are pre-requisites for a rights-based food delivery system, but the government is yet to unveil a road map for this.
Since food security is a state subject, state governments should have been taken on board before passing the Bill.
Since many states ruled by non-Congress parties are against the present Bill, the issue will now descend to the level of a dirty game of passing the buck between the Centre and the states.
Hunger and malnutrition continue to haunt a large section of India’s population despite decades of good economic growth. But the ineffective state-sponsored populism aimed at short-term political benefit is not the only way to tackle the malady.
The food security programme will be a huge commitment with the government spending an estimated Rs12,500bn annually on supply of about 62mn tonnes of rice, wheat and coarse cereals to the target population.
Why can’t the government think of spending this huge amount for building varied infrastructure required for a second revolution in agriculture that will be key to India’s hunger reduction programme?
The tragedy is that such enduring, long-term solutions are not the favourites of a government faced with impending elections. But it is high time the political parties running the government realise that they cannot take the voters for granted for long. It’s after all the people who foot the bill of all these subsidies and freebies being squandered without much thought.
