Food security coverage to remain at 67%: PM

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 3

Combating criticism from Opposition parties on the Shanta Kumar committee’s recommendation  that suggested cutting down the coverage of the Food Security Act to 40 per cent from the existing 67 per cent, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today specified that his government intended to stick with the coverage decided by the UPA’s Act.

“There is no decision to reduce the coverage of the Food Security Act. Please do not spread such stories,” he told Opposition Benches in the Rajya Sabha while concluding the discussion on the Motion of Thanks on President Pranab Mukherjee’s Budget speech.

Responding to observations by some members that such a recommendation had been made by the committee headed by BJP MP Shanta Kumar on reforming the Food Corporation of India (FCI), the Prime Minister said: “There are several reports but it is the government which takes the final decision.”
Sources, in fact, say that even the Food Ministry was not in the favour of lowering the legal entitlement for cheap grain to 40 per cent of the population under the Act.  Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who belongs to Bihar, had voiced serious reservations of such a decision and its repercussions in his state.
The drubbing that the BJP received in the Delhi elections also appears to have played a role in the government rejecting the move which could have been perceived as anti-poor.
Notably, BJP’s opponents in Bihar were all set to make the scaling down of the food security coverage a political issue. So, while the government seems to be going ahead with the majority of the decisions by the committee, it has decided to reject this particular recommendation. The eight-member panel had justified its recommendations on the account of large foodstocks, lack of storage space and high-food subsidy bill. As per the committee, the government could cut its annual food subsidy bill by over Rs 30,000 crore through reduction of coverage of beneficiaries to 40 per cent of the population under the food law and outsourcing major work of the FCI to states governments and private players.