Even as the Centre prepares to implement its proposed national Food Security Act, States have expressed their unhappiness about the contours of the Bill, particularly the cap on the number of beneficiaries which will automatically reduce their allocation of subsidised foodgrains.
Requirement of funds, more foodgrains for distribution under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), and paucity of storage capacity was a common refrain during the two-day conference of State Food and Agriculture Ministers on public distribution system, which was inaugurated by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday.
Criticising the “Planning Commission-imposed caps on number of beneficiaries,” the West Bengal representative wanted the food bill to be amended so as to allow States to modify the number of centrally-identified beneficiaries.
The representative said the financial burden of distribution of TPDS grains should clearly lie with the Centreand should not be passed on or shared with the State, as has been proposed in the food security bill. “The State government has no financial strength to bear any burden.” “Several States participating in the conference indicated their reservations on the food security bill during the conference, which will be looked into,” Union Minister of State for Food and Public Distribution K.V. Thomas said at a press conference on Thursday.
The Bill, which has been referred to Parliamentary Standing Committee, seeks to provide subsidised foodgrains to 75 per cent rural and 50 per cent urban population.
“Kerala has universal PDS and under the proposed Act, they stand to lose their allocation, which they are unhappy about. Likewise, West Bengal and Jammu and Kashmir also expressed certain issues in connection with the food bill, which we will look into,” the Minister said.
While Haryana highlighted the paucity of storage capacity and slow movement of foodgrains from producing States, northeastern States sought enlargement of the food basket by including locally-grown grains.
Tripura Minister said revision of ration cards had raised their number of beneficiaries, while the Jharkhand representative wanted more foodgrains procurement centres to be set up.
Mr. Thomas said the government proposed to initiate a special purpose vehicle for a dedicated freight corridor to link railways with road and port services for smooth transportation of foodgrains.
There was also a proposal to re-distribute the storage centres from producing States to consuming ones.
Separately, at a global wheat conference, chairman of the Food Corporation of India Siraj Hussain said the country would have an additional storage capacity of 10 million tonnes by March 2013. Of this, 3 million tonnes would be ready by March this year.
He said the corporation had hired 4000 Group C employees and planned to hire 6000 more so as to have trained personnel to deal with computerised and modernised PDS under the proposed legislation.
