Food security is a basic right., but BPL wheat gets smuggled to Bangaldesh

Ray

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Food security is a basic right

Brinda Karat

The present food Bill legalises the injustices of a targeted distribution system

A national campaign throughout the month of July on issues related to food security and against rising prices will culminate in a five-day sit-in protest in Delhi beginning today. These are issues fundamental to the well-being of the majority of our people and therefore deserve national support.

With the spectre of drought haunting the countryside, speculators, hoarders and blackmarketeers are back in business. Prices of essential commodities like pulses, edible oil, sugar and salt are going through the roof. Vegetables are out of reach of the average family with the price of a kilo of potatoes increasing by over 100% in the last month. The majority of Indians earn their living in the unorganised sector marked by low and fluctuating incomes with no dearness allowance. Any rise in prices causes havoc in the lives of millions of families.

According to earlier data, an Indian, on average, spent as much as 53% of total expenditure on food requirements. With relentless food inflation this percentage would be far higher now. In comparison, Americans, on average, spend 9.3% of their income on food, in Italy a family on average spends 25.7%, in Japan 19.1%, in France 16.3%, in the United Kingdom 11.5%. While there is a difference in the method of calculation between India and the others, it does emphasise the Indian reality of higher food prices and lower levels of disposable income than other countries.

But the UPA government, preoccupied with its internal squabbles, cares little for the insecurity rising prices and consequent food deprivation causes Indian families. For the government this is collateral damage in its mission to implement pro-corporate reform (PCR) and cut food subsidy.

This started in the initial period of PCR in the 1990s by the introduction of the targeted system through the categorisation of people as poor and non-poor, with only the former being eligible for subsidised grain. This is the bizarre logic of targeting.

The sham estimates of poverty by the Planning Commission became the basis on which to exclude people. In spite of national outrage against the present poverty line figures of Rs 26 a day for an adult in rural India and Rs 32 for an adult in urban India (at 2010-11 prices) these still continue as the basis for access to the public distribution system.

The critical issue here is to reverse targeting and ensure a universal public distribution system. This is estimated to cost the exchequer an additional Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 crore, a small price to pay for a country, which has the largest malnourished population in the world. But this is too much for the UPA government, which prefers to give tax concessions worth Rs 5 lakh crore in a single year to the rich.

This approach is now reflected in its policy regarding the surplus foodgrain stocks it holds. The buffer stock in the month of July, according to the quarterly buffer stock norms India has, should be 3.3 crore tonnes. Current stocks are as high as 8.2 crore tonnes. Instead of distributing these surplus stocks to the millions of families wrongly defined as non-poor, the government has chosen to permit exports "to liquidate the stocks". Most of the exported foodgrain will be ultimately used as feed for livestock converted to animal products in developed countries.

The government sees nothing unethical about subsidising grains for foreign cattle but not for its own people. The decision to export is influenced by agribusiness lobbies, which want to take advantage of rising wheat prices in the international market driven upwards by reported crop damage in major wheat growing areas across the globe.

This is very similar to what happened during the NDA regime. At that time the food stocks were around six crore tonnes and the government sold them off to foreign traders at BPL prices. It had also made open market sales to grain traders at subsidised prices giving them a subsidy of between Rs 7,000 and Rs 8,000 crore. At that time the Congress in opposition had protested. Today, the BJP in opposition is also protesting. But as the facts show, the policies regarding food are no different between the Congress and the BJP.

The right to food must be recognised as a basic right of people and must be backed by legislation. However, the Food Security Bill presently before the parliamentary standing committee makes a mockery of food security by legalising the present injustices of the targeted system. The Left parties have opposed the Bill in its present form. Not only does the Bill retain the APL and BPL categories, it centralises all powers in the hands of the central government and thus undermines any positive measures for food security taken by some of the state governments.

There are utter absurdities in definitions in the Bill. For example, in the section on special groups, a differentiation is made between those in starvation and those in destitution with the former being eligible to two free meals while the latter can get only one. Can any sane person find any difference between a person in starvation defined as "prolonged deprivation of food threatening survival", and destitution defined as those who "have no support for food and nutrition enabling their survival?"

But World Bank indoctrinated economists can find the subtle difference between equally hungry people to decide who will get two free meals and who only one.

The writer is a Rajya Sabha MP.
Food security is a basic right - The Times of India
There are issues that have been raised by Ms Karat, but maybe owing to space, she has not expanded. Possibly she feels that all understand the issue fairly well.

Indeed the nationwide debate does indicate a very lopsided approach to food security.

What could be the methods to tweak this Food Security issue so that the majority of Indians benefit from it and are not stalked with the pangs of hunger or malnutrition?
 

Ray

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Drought not a big calamity in India anymore

SA Aiyer

The monsoon has failed badly this year as it did in 1965. But it's little more than an inconvenience this year, whereas in 1965 it was a monstrous calamity. The drought-proofing of India is a success story, but one widely misunderstood.

India in the 1960s was pathetically dependent on US food aid. Even in the bumper monsoon year of 1964-65, food aid totalled 7 million tonnes, over one-tenth of domestic production. Then India was hit by twin droughts in 1965 and 1966. Grain production crashed by one-fifth. Only unprecedented food aid saved India from mass starvation. Jawaharlal Nehru talked big about self-sufficiency. Yet he led India into deep dependence on foreign charity. The 1966 drought drove India into a ship-to-mouth existence. Hungry mouths could be filled only by food aid, which reached a record 10 million tonnes.

Foreign experts opined that India could never feed itself. William and Paul Paddock wrote a best-seller titled Famine 1975, arguing that the world was running out of food and would suffer global famine by 1975. They said aid-givers couldn't possibly meet the food needs of high-population countries like India. So, the limited food surpluses of the West should be conserved for countries capable of being saved. Countries incapable of being saved, like India, should be left to starve, for the greater good of humanity. Indians were angered and horrified by the book, yet it was widely applauded in the West. Environmentalist Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, praised the Paddock brothers sky-high for having the guts to highlight a Malthusian challenge.

The US was never happy with India's non-alignment. President Johnson made Indian politicians and officials beg repeatedly for more food. This prevented mass starvation, but left Indians writhing with humiliation.

Then came the green revolution. This, it is widely but inaccurately believed, raised food availability and ended import dependence. Now, the green revolution certainly raised yields, enabling production to increase, even though acreage reached a plateau. But it did not improve foodgrain availability per person. This reached a peak of 480 grams per day per person in 1964-65, a level that was not reached again for decades. Indeed, it was just 430 gm per day per person last year. Per capita consumption of superior foods—meat, eggs, vegetables, edible oils—increased significantly over the years. But poor people could not afford superior foods.

How then did the spectre of starvation vanish? Largely because of better distribution. Employment schemes in rain-deficit areas injected purchasing power where it was most needed. The slow but steady expansion of the road network helped grain to flow to scarcity areas. The public distribution system expanded steadily. Hunger remained, but did not escalate into starvation. By the 1990s, hunger diminished too.

Second, the spread of irrigation stemmed crop losses. The share of the irrigated area expanded from roughly one-third to 55% of total acreage. Earlier, most irrigation was through canals, which themselves suffered when droughts dried up reservoirs. But after the 1960s, tubewell irrigation rose exponentially, and now accounts for four-fifths of all irrigation. Tubewells are not affected by drought.

More important, tubewells facilitated rabi production in areas with little winter rain. Once, the rabi crop was just one-third the size of the kharif crop. Today both are equal. This explains why in 2009, which witnessed one of the worst monsoon failures for a century, agricultural production actually rose 1%: good rabi production offset the slump in kharif production.

However, arguably the biggest form of drought proofing lies outside agriculture. Rapid GDP growth has dramatically raised the share of industry and services. Agriculture accounted for 52% of GDP in 1950, and for 29.5% even in 1990. This is now down to just 14%. Even if one-twentieth of this is lost to drought, it will be less than 1% of GDP.

Back in the 1960s, India couldn't afford to import food, and depended on charity. But today GDP is almost $2 trillion, exports of goods and services exceed $300 billion and forex reserves are $280 billion. Even if we had to import 10 million tonnes of wheat at today's high prices, the cost, $3 billion, would be easily affordable. In fact, no imports are needed: government food stocks exceed 80 million tonnes.

This is the real reason that droughts have ceased to be calamities. Foodgrain availability remains as low as in the 1960s, despite the green revolution. But rapid GDP growth, by hugely boosting the share of services and industry in GDP, has made agriculture a relative pygmy, greatly reducing the economy's monsoon dependence. There remains a catch: a drought may no longer mean mass starvation, but still means food inflation.

Swaminomics : SA Aiyar's blog-The Times Of India


This year's poor monsoon is surely going to lead to drought conditions.

Should we not worry and all will still be well?

Is this artcile a correct assessment?

If not, where has the author gone off tangent or has merely glossed over?
 

Ray

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Food security Bill or whatever maybe passed in the Parliament, but it will come to this sad state.

************************************

Wheat raid draws a blank

The enforcement branch on Sunday failed to track down four men allegedly behind the attempt to smuggle 450 tonnes of wheat meant for the poor in Bengal to Bangladesh.

"We are trying to track the owners of three flour mills and a trader who has bagged a contract to supply wheat to Bangladesh at a rate cheaper than the market price. Pockets in Budge Budge and Bishnupur have been raided but the four could not be traced," said an enforcement branch officer.

The smuggling attempt was thwarted on Saturday with the seizure of the 450 tonnes of wheat from a ship that was about to set sail for Bangladesh from the Kidderpore port. The Centre had released the wheat for distribution among below-poverty-line people in Bengal.

The drivers of 20 of the 36 lorries used to transport the wheat from the Food Corporation of India godown in Budge Budge to the port are absconding.

The 18 people who were arrested on Saturday were produced in Bankshall court on Sunday. The master of the vessel, Anaulla Alam, a Bangladeshi, and clearing agent Prasanta Chakrabarty have been remanded in police custody till August 3.

For the rest, the police remand is till August 8.

The police said the wheat was supposed to be carried from the Budge Budge godown to the mills for grinding. The flour was to be packed in pouches weighing 750g each.

"We are investigating the role of FCI officials whose job was to monitor the transportation of the wheat bags from the godown. We have asked the FCI authorities to give us a list of employees involved in the functioning of the godown," said an enforcement branch official.

Wheat raid draws a blank
 

Ray

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Pilferage to Bangla foiled

- BPL wheat being smuggled out seized from port



Calcutta, July 28: Over 450 tonnes of wheat meant for below-poverty-line people in Bengal were today seized from a ship about to sail for Bangladesh in the "biggest" foodgrain haul in the state.

The wheat, which the state had received from the Centre for distribution among the poorest of the poor, had been stored in a Food Corporation of India godown in Budge Budge. But when the time came to take the grain to flour mills, it was loaded into 36 trucks and instead taken to the Kidderpore port.

About half the consignment had already been loaded into the ship — the Al-Khan-Jahan-Ali (II) — when city police's enforcement branch raided the docks around 9am.

Porters were carrying gunny bags on their backs and offloading them into the 800-tonne vessel. Tens of porters had been hired for the job, which involved ferrying several thousand gunny bags from the trucks to the ship.

The police described it as the biggest foodgrain haul in Bengal — the consignment has been valued at Rs 60 lakh — and the first where grains were seized while being smuggled out of the country.

"The challans we have seized from the truck drivers show the port as their destination. But the challans seem fake," an officer said.

"We are trying to find out who is responsible for these challans," said deputy commissioner (enforcement branch) Debabrata Das. "The ship's master claimed he did not know the consignment was being smuggled."

However, police sources later said the ship's master had admitted that a similar consignment of wheat had been smuggled into Bangladesh last month on the same vessel.

Legally, the wheat was to have been delivered at the Ma Tara and RR flour mills in Budge Budge and Shikha Agro in nearby Bishnupur.

After being ground and packed into 750gm pouches, the flour should have been handed back to the food and supplies department for distribution through ration shops.

Today's seizure could only be the tip of the iceberg, officials said. "None of this can take place without the active support of a section of government officials," a source said.

Eighteen people, including the ship's master and several truck drivers, have been arrested.

The police said grain was being stolen from the godown for over a month. "We received a tip-off about this consignment and raided the port," Das said.

The South 24-Parganas controller of food and supplies, who supervises all godowns in the district, refused comment on today's seizure but denied the police claim about past thefts.

"Had the police known about it, they should have acted earlier," said Swarup Mondal. "Had there been pilferage earlier, there would have been a shortage of flour and the (intended) beneficiaries would have suffered."

Food minister Jyotipriyo Mallick hinted that some officials of his department could be involved. "When the agencies collect wheat from godowns, a food department inspector should supervise the procedure. But no one was present when this consignment was sent to the port."

The government has set up a six-member probe committee "The report will come in seven days," Mallick said.

A police officer said Dhaka had recently issued a tender to buy wheat from the market. Three Indian companies had bagged the contract.

"A businessman in Calcutta had promised wheat at lower than the market price to these companies. He may have been smuggling the wheat to Bangladesh on behalf of these companies," the officer said.

The police raided the businessman's home tonight but he was not there.

The Telegraph - Archives
 

sob

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Chattisgarh and TN have gone a long way in streamlining their PDS delivery systems and have been successful in not just reducing the diversion of Grain but also increasing the coverage to the BPL families.

during the communist era, most of the PDS shops were given to party loyalists, which were a major source of corruption and diversion of grains.

PDS Scam - was West Bengal the only culprit ? : Ratan Datta blogs on sulekha, Current Affairs blogs, Ratan Datta blog from india

Those who live in Kolkata and West Bengal know what goes on there. But those live away from West Bengal but are still interested must have read and heard about the agitation against corrupt PDS dealers. In all cases the opposition sponsored agitation took law into their hands and vandalize shops and also houses. In some cases set fire to the houses.

Reason - these Dealers are CPI (M) supporters or relatives of leaders. As if this was some thing unique CPI (M) was resorting to. Govt. ordered investigations and dealers were fired where major irregularities were found.

Then suddenly I bumped on a News Item on The Times of India of Dec.23,2007 under the headline " 2.3 cr bogus ration cards in market ." It was shock trying to comprehend the magnitude of the problem. The next line said - "Despite Grain Imports,Faulty PDS Robs Poor Of Their Share ".

The story said - " The Study conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER ) has provided evidence which can perhaps confirm which some Ministers like P.Chidambaram and Sharad Pawar has been claiming that food grains are being diverted to Balack market and even smuggled into Bangladesh."

Bogus Ration Cards is not some thing which happened in last 3-5 years. This has been a source leakage of subsidized food grains.
 

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Public Distribution System funds diverted to black market: Ex-SC judge




MARGAO: Claiming that there were allegations that 50 % of the central government funds meant for the Public Distribution System (PDS) were being diverted for black marketeering, Justice D P Wadhwa, former judge of the Supreme Court of India and Chairman of the Central Vigilance Committee on PDS, encouraged PDS dealers to open grocery shops as well to help them augment their income

While addressing a public hearing at the Ravindra Bhavan, Fatorda, on Friday, Wadhwa interacted with PDS stakeholders and social activists who raised several grievances and submitted a few demands as well.
Public Distribution System funds diverted to black market: Ex-SC judge - Times Of India
 

Ray

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PDS rice worth Rs1cr sold in black market

In a startling case, Public Distribution System (PDS) rice worth Rs1 crore is learnt to have been swindled by unscrupulous elements of Bargarh and Jajpur for sale in black market. The incident has come to light of late.

According to the information received, 5,000 quintals of Public Distribution System rice for the month of February for Jajpur district was sent from Bargarh by transport contractor Mahesh Prasad Agrawal.

The Civil Supplies department of the district had sent the rice through the transport contractor. But it was learnt that the district administration could not receive the amount of rice even after two months.

The matter came to the fore when the concerned transport contractor submitted a bill to the department for payment. The department has, meanwhile, initiated an inquiry into the alleged irregularly.

As per the agreement between the transport contractor and the department, the former would transport Public Distribution System rice from Bargarh to different destinations for distribution and submit bills latter for payment.

In order to maintain transparency, the concerned contractor is to submit the vehicle numbers and the photographs of the drivers to the department. There are also specific officials in the department to inspect the whole transactions.

But in spite of all these precautions, 5,000 quintals of rice sent to Badchana in Jajpur district just vanished. At the same time, it is surprising as to how the people at Jajpur managed things with the shortage of this substantial amount of rice.

When contacted, concerned businessman Agrawal said he had no role in this business. "Two of my staff did all this and I have lodged an FIR against them in the police station," he said. But he had no reply when asked why he lodged the FIR late.

Collector of Bargarh BG Mishra said appropriate action would be taken against those found guilty after police investigation. "No one will be spared since it involves a sensitive matter," he said adding, "Action will also be initiated at the supply corporation level."

PDS rice worth Rs1cr sold in black market
 

Ray

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PDS is a failure.

Food Security will also be a failure.

Unless failsafe modes are adopted and implemented.
 

sob

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How The PDS Is Changing in Chattisgarh - Business News - IBNLive

the manner in which the Raman Singh-led Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) government in the state has taken up PDS reform since early 2007. Apart from increasing the coverage of PDS from the central government mandated figure of 42 percent (which translates to 19 lakh BPL households) to 74 percent (over 36 lakh households), what stands out in Chhattisgarh is the wide range of structural and legal reforms over the last six years to fix PDS.
At a time when many experts feel that PDS should be replaced with food coupons
or direct cash transfers, the Chhattisgarh model offers some key lessons on making this system work.
 

Bhadra

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PDS is a failure.

Food Security will also be a failure.

Unless failsafe modes are adopted and implemented.
Why do things fail in India before the start ?
 

Ray

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Why do things fail in India before the start ?
Because it appeals to the vote bank.

It is announced with fanfare.

And then are the nuts and bolts forced into place.

The result - a square nut in a round hole!
 

Bhadra

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You mean to say Babus are incapable of implementation of a policy? In other words Babus are the biggest hurdle in spite of a good policy? Or is the policy itself is hijacked by the policy makers and the implementer Babus !
 

Ray

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You mean to say Babus are incapable of implementation of a policy? In other words Babus are the biggest hurdle in spite of a good policy? Or is the policy itself is hijacked by the policy makers and the implementer Babus !
Babus make hay while the sun shines.

The Govt allows them to exploit because the scheme are cockamamie to start with with loopholes that would shame a sieve!
 

Bhadra

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Yes Babus make hay and the population is devoid of even the hay. Left at large in hunger to ask Babus for hay if not grain....
 

ani82v

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Babus make hay while the sun shines.

The Govt allows them to exploit because the scheme are cockamamie to start with with loopholes that would shame a sieve!
Babus everywhere are ready to make hay given a chance. It is only a strong willed Minister or high level administrator who can make them work.

In any state if the Minister is in laissez faire mode, corruption happens by default.
 

Predator

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How The PDS Is Changing in Chattisgarh - Business News - IBNLive

the manner in which the Raman Singh-led Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) government in the state has taken up PDS reform since early 2007. Apart from increasing the coverage of PDS from the central government mandated figure of 42 percent (which translates to 19 lakh BPL households) to 74 percent (over 36 lakh households), what stands out in Chhattisgarh is the wide range of structural and legal reforms over the last six years to fix PDS.
At a time when many experts feel that PDS should be replaced with food coupons
or direct cash transfers, the Chhattisgarh model offers some key lessons on making this system work.
jahan chah hai wahan raha he :thumb:
 

Predator

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nice thread RayC, diversion of subsidised food grains and kerosene to black market needs further attention by media and police
 

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