Old wine in new bottle

The UPA government’s final attempt to regain the lost trust of the voters before the impending Lok Sabha election is through the much acclaimed National Food Security Bill (NFSB). This is also being lauded by MSN as Sonia’s pet project.

The four pillars of NFSB

Food Availability: The availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, supplied through  domestic production or imports (including food aid).

Food Access: Access by individuals to adequate resources (entitlements) for acquiring appropriate foods for a  nutritious diet. Entitlements are defined as the set of all commodity bundles over which a person can establish command given the legal, political, economic and social arrangements of the community in which they live (including traditional rights such as access to common resources).

Utilization or Absorption: Utilization of food through adequate diet, clean water, sanitation and health care to reach a state of nutritional well-being where all physiological needs are met. This brings out the importance of non-food inputs in food security.

Stability: To be food secure, a population, household or individual must have access to adequate food at all times. They should not risk losing access to food as a consequence of sudden shocks (e.g. an economic or climatic crisis) or cyclical events (e.g. seasonal food insecurity). The concept of stability can therefore refer to both the availability and access dimensions of food security.

But after repeated readings of several articles I fail to understand how different it is from the current Public Distribution System (PDS) or others that are already in place. 

The main purpose of PDS was to act as price supporting programmes for the consumers during the periods of food shortage of the 1960. In 1980 the coverage of PDS extended to rural areas in some states as welfare programme. In 1985 the scheme extended to all the tribal blocks covering about 51 million persons. The scheme was revamped and extended to 164 million persons covering the rural areas.

The FSB also talks about anganwadis. But these have been in place since 1975! We also have the mid-day meal programs in government schools since a long time.

So what is the new bill going to do which the older one couldn’t do?

It is an accepted fact that much leakage happens in the old system. FSB hopes to take care of this by the direct cash transfer system. How foolproof is this going to be when those governing the system have not changed at all?

Today, India has the largest stock of grain in the world besides China, the government spends Rs. 750 billion ($13.6 billion) per year, almost 1 percent of GDP, yet 21% remain undernourished. Under PDS scheme, each family below the poverty line is eligible for 35 kg of rice or wheat every month, while a household above the poverty line is entitled to 15 kg of foodgrain on a monthly basis.

The above graph shows that our foodgrains production has increased every year; yet millions go hungry.

As for storage of foodgrains, our FCI storages have never been revamped.  In fact much food grains are lost while in storage and is shameful in a country which has the most hungry in the world.

In 2010-11, the foodgrain loss was 1.56 lakh tonne, while it was 1.31 lakh tonnes in 2009-10 and 0.58 lakh tonnes in 2008-09, Food minister K V Thomas said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Even now most ration shops indulge in practices which create a black market, thus increasing the food grain price.

In aggregate, only about 42% of subsidised grains issued by the central pool reach the target group, according to a Planning Commission study released in March 2008.

In fact we are told that for every Rs. 4 spent on PDS, only Rs. 1 reaches the poor” and “57% of the PDS food grain does not reach the intended people” (UIDAI, 2009)

Besides, how much free food can a nation afford to give and how long? 

Instead if this amount is utilized for free education it will go a long way in creating a nation better equipped to face the present times. 

Won’t free and mandatory education combined with mid-day meals take care of a large section of our population? Won't it go a long way if a part of this money is spent on infrastructure projects?

If more than 40 years of upliftment through PDS couldn't make much change to the number of poor in India how will it do so now? Yes..we have uplifted our politicians and that is what even this will do. They shall remain the only winners as usual.

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/men-and-ideas/entry/food-security-bill-corruption-by-another-name

http://under-the-tree-of-tranquility.blogspot.com/2011/05/only-winners.html
http://www.umdcipe.org/conferences/policy_exchanges/conf_papers/Abstracts/29.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Distribution_System
http://cacp.dacnet.nic.in/NFSB.pdf
http://www.academia.edu/378216/Public_Distribution_System_in_India

Ayn Rand

I read "The Fountainhead" while I was in college and the characters failed to leave my sub conscious mind. Those talking of self sacrifice and selfless life may never understand what she tried to say. But without first learning to loving yourself how can you love another?

“My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”

Biography

Ayn Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2, 1905. At age six she taught herself to read and two years later discovered her first fictional hero in a French magazine for children, thus capturing the heroic vision which sustained her throughout her life. At the age of nine she decided to make fiction writing her career. Thoroughly opposed to the mysticism and collectivism of Russian culture, she thought of herself as a European writer, especially after encountering Victor Hugo, the writer she most admired.

"What is greatness? I will answer: it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem." | Playboy interview with Ayn Rand

"I don't intend to build in order to have clients; I intend to have clients in order to build." | The Fountainhead

"I refuse to apologize for my ability - I refuse to apologize for my success - I refuse to apologize for my money." | Atlas Shrugged

"Your self is your mind; renounce it and you become a chunk of meat ready for any cannibal to swallow." | Atlas Shrugged

"Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedoml a free mind and a free market are corollaries." | For the New Intellectual

"You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function; fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live. You, who have lost the concept of the difference, you who claim that fear and joy are incentives of equal power—and secretly add that fear is the more “practical”—you do not wish to live, and only fear of death still holds you to the existence you have damned." | Atlas Shrugged

“Now look at me! Take a good look! I was born and I knew I was alive and I knew what I wanted. What do you think is alive in me? Why do you think I'm alive? Because I have a stomach and eat and digest the food? Because I breathe and work and produce more food to digest? Or because I know what I want, and that something which knows how to want—isn't that life itself? And who—in this damned universe—who can tell me why I should live for anything but for that which I want?” | We the Living

"The root of production is man's mind; the mind is an attribute of the individual and it does not work under orders, controls or compulsion, as centuries of stagnation have demonstrated. Progress cannot be planned by government, and it cannot be restricted or retarded; it can be only stopped, as every statist government has demonstrated." 

"For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors - between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it." | Atlas Shrugged

"[Selfless love] would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person’s need of you. I don’t have to point out to you that no one would be flattered by, nor would accept, a concept of that kind. Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person."