Entitlement to food security confers a right that is more specific and far-reaching than what is in MGNREGA or the Right to Education (RTE) legislations.
The MGNREGA does not promise anyone the right to a job . It merely guarantees 100 days of wage employment in a year, provided the person concerned is willing to do unskilled manual labour.
The RTE, likewise, only casts an obligation on the Government to ensure formal schooling and completion of elementary education by all children in the 6-14 years age group. But there are no binding conditions in respect of quality. And since over 90 per cent of habitations in India have primary schools within one kilometre distance, the RTE doesn’t really present insurmountable challenges.
This is not so with the National Food Security Ordinance, which provides
Currently, the grain that is channelised through the public distribution system (PDS) is made available to the targeted beneficiaries more as a service rendered by a benevolent state. Some States — Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh — do a great job of it, while most — particularly in the Hindi heartland, housing the bulk of India’s poor — do not have even a semblance of a functioning PDS.
The present system, moreover, places no obligation to deliver grain. Ration shop dealers, too, can turn off consumers by claiming “supplies have not come from the top” and merrily diverting to the open market.
But the moment access to grain becomes a ‘right’, the game changes completely. It creates fertile ground for NGOs to identify any district or block where no PDS exists — there are scores or them — and file petitions in courts about people being denied their ‘right’.
Over time, as awareness spreads about the new ‘right’ — the NGOs and the media will ensure it happens — it would also unleash additional demand for PDS grain that was hitherto suppressed only because of people’s low expectations of getting it in the first place.
Further, even farmers, who earlier retained a part of the grain they produced for self-consumption, will choose to sell almost 100 per cent and meet captive family requirements largely from the PDS. Since the latter is to anyway cover three-fourths of the rural population, it will lead to a situation where the country’s entire grain production potentially becomes marketable surplus!
All this raises practical questions of implementation, only to highlight what granting of a legally enforceable right entails when it concerns food.
How are States and district administrations going to deal with the public interest litigations that are bound to follow?
Similarly, will the Government procure the entire wheat that farmers would offer to sell at the minimum support price of Rs 13.5/kg, only to give a part of it back to them at Rs 2?
These are serious concerns that cannot be wished away, much as one supports the idea of giving citizens their right to food.
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