The UPA has bowed down before the WTO and limited the grant of food subsidy to just four years in the Food Security Bill, alleges EAS Sarma, former secretary to the GoI, in a letter to Sonia Gandhi
EAS Sarma, former secretary to Government of India (GoI) has alleged Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is bowing to pressures from developed 
countries to limit the grant of food subsidy to just four years against the provisions in the Food Security Bill.
Mr Sarma, in a letter to UPA chairperson and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, said, “If the benefits of the food security law were to last only four years, it would inevitably lead one to the conclusion that UPA has enacted the law only to gain political mileage for the coming elections and not with any commitment to the need to provide nutritious food to the low-income groups.”
Here is the letter sent by Mr Sarma to the Congress president…
Smt Sonia Gandhi
President
Indian National Congress
Dear Smt Sonia Gandhi,
Subject: - India's stand at ensuing Bali session of WTO is an affront to National Food Security Act, 2013 enacted by the Parliament
The National Food Security Act, 2013 enacted by the Parliament on September 12, 2013 is a progressive law aimed at ensuring the supply of nutritious food to millions of low-income groups of the population. The law emerges from the right to nutritious food and right to live, a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution.
When the law was enacted by the Parliament, the leaders of INC tried to draw political mileage by saying that it was the Congress that spearheaded the initiative to introduce the law.
Hardly two months after its enactment, this Act that truly belonged to the Parliament has come under a serious threat as a result of UPA government's haste in making commitments to WTO prior to the Bali session of the world organisation scheduled to take place in December this year.
Apparently, under pressure from the developed countries, the government has caved in to agree to a 4-year “peace clause” (see enclosed report), tacitly accepting the latter's contention that food subsidy is a “market distorting subsidy” and limiting the grant of the subsidy to a time frame of four years. In other words, when the Parliament of this country has provided a permanent statutory foundation for food security as a fundamental right, the UPA executive has bowed down before WTO and introduced a time limitation, a concept not envisaged by the Parliament. In a way, it amounts to holding the Parliament in contempt and defying a fundamental right of the citizen provided in the Constitution. There cannot be anything more bizarre than this.
It is ironic that India should initially lead 46 developing countries in WTO to press the argument that the concept of food security should be deemed to be outside the world organisation's protocols on free trade, but quietly cave in to the pressures exerted by the developed countries to discard that argument overnight. In the process, the UPA government has literally questioned the sovereignty of the Indian Parliament and the applicability of the Indian laws.
If the benefits of the food security law were to last only four years, it would inevitably lead one to the conclusion that UPA has enacted the law only to gain political mileage for the coming elections and not with any commitment to the need to provide nutritious food to the low-income groups.
I am marking this letter to all political parties and Parliamentarians so as to generate a debate on the stand that the government should take before WTO, when the Parliament itself has enacted a law.
Regards,
Yours sincerely,
EAS Sarma
Former Secretary to GOI
Visakhapatnam
20-11-2013
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They pushed this act in Parliament against so many odds and now they cave in!
Expediency is the name of the game !
'A food-security strategy that relies on a combination of increased productivity in agriculture, greater policy predictability and general openness to trade will be more effective than other strategies;
Safety nets are crucial for alleviating food insecurity in the short term, as well as for providing a foundation for long-term development;
High food prices present incentives for increased long-term investment in the agriculture sector, which can contribute to improved food security in the longer term.' (IFAD, WFP and FAO, 2011)
Schedule II of the Act contains provisions relating to reforms to the agricultural sector that needed attention. Assuring sustained increase in production consistent with the growing requirements of the Act and the resources that the States should provide for implementing the Act are vital components of the agenda but receive scant attention. As the CACP points out “Assured procurement gives an incentive for farmers to produce cereals rather than diversify the production-basket…Vegetable production too may be affected—pushing food inflation further.” If these cereals do not find attractive prices and specific support prices for those that are part of the food security system, there would be serious consequences for the farm economy.
“Priority Category”: Definition of the poor has come into serious controversy lately. The criteria have to be fully in public knowledge. While the Act specified that the records have to be transparent and in the public domain, there is no timeframe for doing so by the States. So is the case for another requirement under the Act: “that the States shall put in place the needed information, communication and technology systems in place.”
The list of the eligible families should be displayed at the village Panchayat level and at the ward level in the urban municipalities. Any divergence of opinion has to be resolved at the village/ local level within one week of placing the list on notice. Such list could be prepared through a survey done by NGOs or educational institutions at the block/ Mandal levels.
All those who are within the exempted income category for payment of income tax should become eligible for food entitlement under the food security provisions.
All the tax-payers shall be the excluded category for two reasons: they have the ability to buy the food because they have regular income; they are also otherwise covered by some social security provision or the other.
Nutrition security is the whole while food security is a part of that, and therefore the law that is being contemplated should really have been a food-cum-nutrition security law rather than a mere food security law.
It is also worth noting at the outset that an important strategy for defending and expanding the rights of the poor in any scheme that seeks to guarantee a particular right is to fine-tune it to the other related schemes in a manner that all related schemes pull together all the rights that govern all the participants in such schemes. Such a synergy will guarantee all rights essential to the poor, each right reinforcing the other. Food and nutrition security is no exception to such a synergy. In fact the most important paradigm that should govern a law that guarantees food-cum-nutrition security is to define such security as the sum total of the entitlement that a poor household would access through its entitlement in all the food and nutrition related schemes that the Government implements or proposes to implement and not merely through a single programme like the TPDS. Unfortunately, the Act failed to provide this comprehensiveness
“Priority Category”: Definition of the poor has come into serious controversy lately. The criteria have to be fully in public knowledge. While the Act specified that the records have to be transparent and in the public domain, there is no timeframe for doing so by the States. So is the case for another requirement under the Act: “that the States shall put in place the needed information, communication and technology systems in place.”
The list of the eligible families should be displayed at the village Panchayat level and at the ward level in the urban municipalities. Any divergence of opinion has to be resolved at the village/ local level within one week of placing the list on notice. Such list could be prepared through a survey done by NGOs or educational institutions at the block/ Mandal levels.
All those who are within the exempted income category for payment of income tax should become eligible for food entitlement under the food security provisions.
All the tax-payers shall be the excluded category for two reasons: they have the ability to buy the food because they have regular income; they are also otherwise covered by some social security provision or the other.
Nutrition security is the whole while food security is a part of that, and therefore the law that is being contemplated should really have been a food-cum-nutrition security law rather than a mere food security law.
It is also worth noting at the outset that an important strategy for defending and expanding the rights of the poor in any scheme that seeks to guarantee a particular right is to fine-tune it to the other related schemes in a manner that all related schemes pull together all the rights that govern all the participants in such schemes. Such a synergy will guarantee all rights essential to the poor, each right reinforcing the other. Food and nutrition security is no exception to such a synergy. In fact the most important paradigm that should govern a law that guarantees food-cum-nutrition security is to define such security as the sum total of the entitlement that a poor household would access through its entitlement in all the food and nutrition related schemes that the Government implements or proposes to implement and not merely through a single programme like the TPDS. Unfortunately, the Act failed to provide this comprehensiveness.
Implementation is at the doorsteps of the State Governments while the stocks are with the Central Government and the coordination between the two would require to be non-partisan and wholehearted.