Noble laureate Amartya Sen today said it is unfortunate that government has not been able to push through the Food Security Bill that sought to provide subsidised foodgrains to people below poverty line.
“It is unfortunate that we are not able to pass the Food Security Bill because Parliament is not able to meet”, he said during a seminar at the ADB annual meet here.
He further said the country needs to set its priority right and focus on the real issues concerning the people.
“We have to think about getting our priorities right,” Sen said.
The government, which had introduced Food Security Bill in the Lok Sabha in 2011, could not get it passed with the Opposition stalling the proceedings in the House over some issue or the other.
The proposed Food Bill, the UPA government’s ambitious social welfare programme, aims to provide legal right over subsidised foodgrains to 67 per cent of the population.
It seeks to provide a provide uniform allocation of 5 kg foodgrains (per person) at fixed rate of of Rs 3 (rice), Rs 2 (wheat) and Rs 1 (coarse grains) per kg to 67 per cent of the country’s population.
At the proposed coverage of entitlement, total estimated annual foodgrains requirement is 61.23 million tonnes and is likely to cost the exchequer Rs 1,24,724 crore.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.