KEY POINTS

·        The counsel by a committee of secretaries to restrict the application of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) chiefly to the deserving sections of the population seems sound and logical.

·        The most imprudent of these is the arbitrarily determined norm of covering about two-thirds of the entire population (75 per cent rural and 50 per cent urban) under this law. This seems too high considering that the poverty level is now much lower.

·        Equally questionable is the stipulation of supplying foodgrains to the beneficiaries at just Rs 3 per kg for rice, Rs 2 for wheat and Rs 1 for coarse cereals and putting down these rates in the law itself.

·        The recently released Economic Survey 2019-20 has also suggested such a move, acknowledging the shortcomings of the food security law and its adverse impact on the food economy.

·        It wants the law to be confined to the bottom 20 per cent of the population. The others could be supplied grains under the normal public distribution system (PDS) at the prices linked to the cost of procurement.

·        Another high-level committee, headed by former food minister Shanta Kumar, appointed in 2014 by the Narendra Modi government, had also gone into this issue.

·        Its report had categorically stated that a 67 per cent population coverage under the NFSA was on the higher side and should be trimmed to around 40 per cent. That would suffice to cover all the BPL families and, perhaps, some non-poor as well, it had maintained.

·        For it entitled them only to 5 kg of subsidised cereals per head per month, against 7 kg per person they were getting earlier under the targeted PDS.

·        Therefore, need to supplement the supplies by purchasing food from the market at high prices. The committee also suggested keeping the grain prices for the priority sector households under the NFSA at 50 per cent of the minimum support prices. 

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