Mumbai: “The National Food Security Bill is envisaged as a landmark legislation that will guarantee and legally admit the right for food for all citizens of the nation. But Proposed Food Security Bill is a half baked approach in realizing comprehensive food security for the nation” said Mohammed Anees, Convener, Committee on Policy Initiatives, Movement for Peace & Justice (MPJ), (Maharashtra).
“Yet what has come out is just a repetition of the earlier fault-prone, targeted, often proven as wrong, divisive and one that contravenes the spirit of the Constitution, a Public Distribution System which fares even weaker in guarantying complete food & nutritional security” he added.
He further said that important aspect in the food life cycle, i.e. ensuring security in terms of food grain production, is not even discussed. Certain non-measurable endeavors on reviving agriculture are mentioned under the chapter “Progressive realization of entitlement,” whose meaning we fail to fathom.
Following are some recommendations by MPJ (Maharashtra) which has consistently been engaged on the issue of food security and agrarian crisis.
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Sections
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Comment / Suggestion / Alternate
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Sec2g:“Destitute Persons” shall mean men, women or children who lack the resources, means and support required for nutrition enabling survival with dignity;
Sec10. Entitlement of Destitute persons
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What are the methods of identifying “Destitute Persons” and no clear compensation listed for denial of entitlement of “Destitute Persons”
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No mention of entitlement for adolescent girls
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The bill does not provide for any entitlement for adolescent girls.
a)Note the successive Supreme Court orders (28th Nov 2001, 7th Oct 2004, 13th Dec 2006) on Universal ICDS have noted the importance of including adolescent girls under ICDS.
b)The presence of large number of anaemic girls (75% in rural India according to Saxena Report Aug 2009), high incidence of low weight birth, this important category cannot be ignored. Adolescent girls must be entitled for nutrition and health benefits thru Anganwadis.
c) Help reduce child marriage and early pregnancy of adolescent girls
d)This is also needed to meet the Millenium Development Goal No 5 “Improve Maternal Health”
e) Sec 84 (2) Duty of Central Government to Frame Schemes: to include adolescent girls as a separate beneficiary
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Sec8: Midday meal to Children.- (1) On and from the date of enactment of this Act, the State Government shall provide all children up to class-8..
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The benefits of MDM should be extended upto class-10.
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Sec13 upto Sec16: Right of persons living in starvation
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This section is just an additional elaboration of Art 21 of the constitution. The section should also include compensation for denial of this right and penalties for public servant.
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Sec 17, 18 & 19: Identification and Subsidized food grains to rural and urban households
Sec17. Identification of Households: The State Government shall, based on the criteria mentioned in Schedule. … and Schedule … identify households known as the Priority Group and General Group and issue to them appropriate Ration Cards to enable them to receive food grains at the rates applicable to them.
Sec18. Subsidised Food Grains to rural households.- (1) The State Government shall provide to all rural households on the basis of criteria mentioned in Schedule …. to subsidized food grains at the rates specified in Schedule 4 hereto, to be known as the Priority Group.
(2) The Central Government shall have the power, by notification, to add to the criteria in the schedule ….. here to, but so as in a manner by not removing any category from the schedule.
(3) All rural households other than those in the priority group shall be entitled to subsidized food grains at the rates specified in Schedule 4 here to, to be known as the General Category.
(4) The State Government may by notification in the official gazette exclude persons who fulfil the exclusion criteria provided in Schedule … , to be known as the Excluded Category.
Provided, however by making the said exclusion, the State Government shall ensure that not less than 90% of all rural households are entitled to subsidized food grains in accordance with sub section (1) and (3).
Sec19. Subsidised Food Grains to Urban households: (1) The State Government shall provide to all urban households on the basis of criteria mentioned in Schedule …. shall be entitled to subsidized food grains at the rates specified in Schedule 4 hereto, to be known as the priority group.
(2) The Central Government shall have the power, by notification, to add to the criteria in the schedule ….. here to, but so as in a manner not removing any category from the schedule.
(3) All urban households other than those in the priority group shall be entitled to subsidized food grains at the rates specified in Schedule 4 here to, to be known as the general category.
(4) The State Government may by notification in the official gazette exclude persons who fulfil the exclusion criteria provided in Schedule … , to be known as the excluded category.
Provided, however by making a said exclusion, the State Government shall ensure that not less than 50% of all urban households are entitled to subsidized food grains in accordance with sub section 3.
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We have serious concerns & disagreement on the approach toward Food & Nutritional security laid out in the bill under these sections.
a)Repeat of the faulty TPDS: Formation of 3 categories viz. Priority, General and Exclusion, we are repeating the mistakes of 1997. The Right to Food Case in Supreme Court have noted major identification errors.
b) Just by assigning different title does not take away the fact that the categories are based on the Tendulkar Report on Poverty, albeit marginally expanded but still less than the Saxena Report suggestion and far below the Arjunsen Gupta’s “poor & vulnerable groups” comprising 77.8% of our population.
c) Recent Planning Commissions submission of Rs15/20 as Poverty Line for Rural/Urban makes clear the intention is to once again repeat the mistakes of the 1997 BPL survey and denial of vast section of deserving from legal entitlements.
d) We suggest “Near Universalise” methodology with simple “exclusion” criteria that will be equivalent to the “food grain provision” requirement for Priority & General category put together.
e) No separate 7kg and 4kg individual entitlements as proposed for “Priority” & “General” categories. An household of 5 members require minimum 50kg food grain. 7kg & 4kg are much less than monthly requirement.
f) Schedule IV does not specify kgs for Rice, Wheat and Millets. We suggest 4kg each of Rice, Wheat & Millet as individual entitlement.
j) Mere provision of Rice, Wheat & Millet makes the entitlement as “Cereal Centric” It contravene the purpose and spirit of Art 21 and Art 47 of the Constitution and repeated again in the Preamble of this Bill for deriving justification of this Act. By making the entitlement as only “Cereal Centric” and by not including pulses and oil as legal entitlements we are not ensuring genuine food & nutrition security.
k) The legal entitlements must remain in perpetuity and must not be linked to the end of the 12th Plan as was mentioned in the Note to NFS Bill dated 21st Jan 2011 by NAC’s working group.
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Sec 26: Monitoring the Procurement, Distribution and Sale of Subsidized Food Grains
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Add a clause:
The State Government shall appoint a Vigilance committee for every Fair Price Shop at Rural & Urban areas
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Sec 29 & 46 Eligibility for appointment of Vice Chairperson and other members of National Food Commission & State Food Commission
(a) who have been or are in an All – India Service or any civil service of the Union or State or in a civil post under the Union or State having knowledge and experience in matters relating to food security, policy making and administration in the field of agriculture, civil supplies, nutrition and health or any allied field;
(b) who are of eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in law, human rights, science and technology, social service, management, nutrition, food policy or public administration;
(c) who have a proven record of work relating to the improvement of the Food and Nutrition Rights of the poor:
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Please add the following:
At any given point of time, at least 3 members from of the commission including Vice Chairperson must belong to clause b & c of this Section
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Sec62. Appointment of the District Grievance Redressal Officer
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Some suggestions:
a)The Short Service type appointment is weak and will not attract the best.
b)The idea of appointment of Defenders of Human Rights for Justice & Reparations in the proposed Prevention of Communal & Targeted Violence to be extended here.
c)We suggest that appointment of two District Grievance Redressal Officers viz. One from the UPSC with a posting of not more than 5 years and the Second from the civil society with experience in monitoring the schemes under this Act.
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Sec69(a)(11) Power to give Directions…the District Grievance Redressal Officer…have the power to:
a)Direct the appropriate authority to:
xi. Make regular reports to the District Grievance Redressal Officer regarding implementation of the direction given by the District Grievance Redressal Officer
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Correct 69(a)(11)
Make regular reports to the State Food Commission regarding implementation of the direction given by the State Food Commission
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Sec 79. Dereliction of Duty by Public Servant
Sec 80. Dereliction of Duty by Government Departments
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Both the sections do not cover public servants who have retired but have been proved to be guilty of dereliction of duty.
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Sec 81. Power to impose Penalties.- (1) Where the District Grievance Redressal Officer or the State Food Commission or the National Food Commission, as the case may be, at the time of deciding any complaint or appeal is of the opinion that any public servant discharging duties under the Act has, without any reasonable cause or is guilty of dereliction of his duties in accordance with this Act, it shall impose a penalty not exceeding five thousand rupees in the first instance and of Rs 100 for every day thereafter until the relief, as directed by the District Grievance Redressal Officer, is granted.
(2) The District Grievance Redressal Officer, State Food Commission or the National Food Commission, as the case maybe, shall be competent to direct deduction of the said penalty from the salary of the public servant
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a)The penalty under Sec 81 is quite weak and will not act as deterrent.
b) Apart from fines, provision for criminal proceeding should also be included for serious derelictions like denial of entitlement for Destitutes, Homeless and Persons living in starvation.
c) State Food Commission / District Grievance Redressal Officer can refer State Government initiate criminal proceedings against public servants for serious derelictions and sanction is deemed to have been granted by this Act.
d) Essential Commodities Act must also be referred or invoked for dereliction of duties.
e) Public servants in municipal bodies must also be included under the ambit of this Act
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Sec95(2). Vigilance Committee
Every vigilance committee shall have, at least, the following:
(a) Two Persons belonging to a Scheduled Caste and/ or Tribe
(b) Two Women and
(c) Two Destitute Persons or disabled people
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Add the following categories:
a) One person from the minority community
b) At least one person from the civil society known to have genuinely worked on issues of livelihood or aligned with Right to Food Campaign
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Sec83. Duties of Central Government to ensure adequate budgetary provisions: It shall be the duty of the Central Government to ensure that adequate budgetary provisions and timely allocation of resources are made within one year from the Act being brought into force, so as to ensure that all the authorities and institutions established under this Act can function at full force and without any constraint whatsoever, as to carry out their mandate under this Act
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The need of a comprehensive rights based food security legislation is overdue. The Act must come in effect immediately. The external monitoring apparatus i.e the commissions & redressal officers can be setup within 6 months of the act coming in force.
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Sec 93. Duty to identify persons living in starvation: Local bodies (Panchayati Raj Institutions and Urban Local Bodies) shall ensure identification of people living with starvation in their territorial jurisdiction, and alert the district authorities of starvation like conditions, of individuals or groups.
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What if the local bodies do not identify the persons living in starvation?
The Rafiq Nagar case of Mumbai is an example wherein the local ward office admitted the deaths of 18 children under-6 within a span of 6 months but made no effort to highlight starvation.
Such behavior of Public Servants must be considered as dereliction of duties under Sec 79 & Sec 80 of this Act
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Chapter XVI: TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
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We suggest that an Integrated Community Based Monitoring (CBM) be setup for all welfare schemes esp related to Food Security & Healthcare.
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CHAPTER – XVII & Sec 96: PROGRESSIVE REALISATION OF ENTITLEMENTS
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a)The clause under this chapter are just wish list of any civil democratic government. Most of what is contained in the chapter are already present in the constitution.
b)But 60 years after the dedication of the constitution to ourselves we are still way behind to ensure the basic necessities like food & nutritional security, affordable & quality healthcare, universal education & dignified employment.
c) Unless all these are substantiated with timely actions on the ground, adequate budgetary allocation and commitment by acknowledging these as “Legal entitlements” rather than as “Progressive Realisation of Entitlements”, we will see little being done on the ground.
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