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 In the spotlight |
Food Security Bill: caught in a bureaucratic quagmire
Promised by the Congress in its 2009 election manifesto, the Food Security Bill has been caught in a bureaucratic quagmire.
The latest is that the bill is unlikely to become an act this year..
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Food Security Bill: caught in a bureaucratic quagmire
Promised by the Congress in its 2009 election manifesto, the Food Security Bill has been caught in a bureaucratic quagmire.
The latest is that the bill is unlikely to become an act this year. There are strong political reasons-such as elections in West Bengal-for passing the legislation next year.
In the meanwhile, there is likely to be much debate on what is ultimately a questionable statistical exercise: determining the total number of families who fall in the below poverty line (BPL) category and hence become eligible for food security benefit.
In typical bureaucratic fashion, the statistical exercise misses the main thrust of the proposed legislation, as articulated by the Congress in its manifesto.
Here’s what the party promised:
- The right to food will be guaranteed by law, to ensure access to sufficient food for all people especially the most vulnerable (emphasis added).
- Every family living below the poverty line will be entitled to 25 kg of foodgrains at Rs 3 per kg.
- Community kitchens will be set up for the homeless and migrants.
- Government will ensure social security to all persons who are at risk including single women households, disabled and elderly, urban homeless, released bonded workers, primitive tribal groups and members of most backward dalit communities.
- Direct income support will be provided to farmers in ecologically vulnerable areas.
- Government will ensure that farming becomes profitable.
- Foodgrains procurement and delivery of minimum support price will be done at the doorstep of farmers.
- The Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) will be universalised, to cover all children under the age of six.
Having made these tall promises, the Congress apparently forgot about them till party president Sonia Gandhi sent the government a not very gentle reminder.
Then events began to move quickly, and in the haste, the policy-makers have not seen the wood for the trees.
The Union Department of Food and Public Distribution circulated a concept note on the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA) in June 2009.
Subsequently, an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) was constituted “to examine various issues relating to the proposed law”.
The EGoM met twice in September 2009, and had another “exclusive” meeting on NFSA Act in February 2010.
A few weeks later, in his budget speech, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced: “We are now ready with the draft Food Security Bill which will be placed in the public domain very soon.”
The draft is not yet in public domain and one version published in the website of the Right to Food (India) campaign is preceded by a disclaimer
which states that the published document may not be the draft of the bill that has been forwarded to the Cabinet.
But some main features of the proposed legislation are well known-and news reports and analyses on the same have not been contradicted by government-and the available `trailer’ makes it amply clear that the Congress party’s pre-election promises have been subverted by babudom.
The trailer is not of the promised movie.
The Congress promised access to sufficient food for all people. NFSA has reduced it to access to a certain amount of foodgrains to people falling under some or the other (to be finalised) BPL criterion.
Moreover, the objective of providing sufficient food, which implies nutritionally adequate food, has been reduced to so many kilos of wheat and so many kilos of rice. The issue of nutritional security has been completely bypassed.
As MS Swaminathan pointed out in an article in The Hindu (March 23, 2010 online version), NFSA might help BPL families access cheap foodgrains, but they will be continued to be denied a balanced diet.
“At the prevailing price of pulses, such families will not have access to protein-rich foods. Similarly, hidden hunger caused by the deficiency of micro-nutrients such as iron, iodine, zinc, vitamin A and Vitamin B12 will persist,” he wrote.
If these deficiencies are not addressed, Swaminathan added, euphemestically, “the title `Food Security Bill’ will be inappropriate.”
Ignoring these fundamental objections, the government’s current focus is on choosing from different estimations of BPL families for the purpose of limiting NFSA beneficiaries.
Admittedly, there are huge financial implications involved.
If the estimation done by the Planning Commission is accepted, the number of potential beneficiaries would be 74 million. If the estimation of a committee headed by economist Suresh Tendulkar is accepted, the number would rise by six million and if the estimation done by NC Saxena is accepted, the number would rise by more than four times.
But the moot point, which has been repeatedly made by civil society organisations, is that there is a fundamental difference between the way poverty estimates are made at the Central level and the way BPL families are actually identified at the state level.
The two processes use totally different methodologies. Overlapping one over the other is nonsensical.
Yet that was what was done in the last round of identifying BPL families. The number of families was artificially restricted, to match the Centre’s poverty estimations.
Politics and vested interests played a big role in some states. Many hungry families were left out; some landlords were included..
 Alternative
AtIs there a sensible and workable alternative?
Jessica Seddon Wallack, director, Centre for Development Finance at the Institute for Financial and Management Research (IFMR), Chennai, suggests a solution (Financial Express online edition, posted May 1, 2010): offer nutritionally sound but less appealing goods, such as coarse cereals like jowar, to all at subsidised rates.
This will lead to automatic selection of the needy, as those who can afford more valued goods will not pick up the coarse cereals.
She also suggests limited-term allocations to deal with emergencies, such as death or serious illness or injury suffered by a family’s main wage-earning member (a fact that can be more easily verified than the family’s poverty status), or abnormal variations in weather that would affect food security of agricultural households in a particular area, at a particular time.
In effect, Wallack suggest a shift from identifying target households to target situations.
This approach has the potential to deliver more than the result of any amount of sophisticated, and fundamentally questionable, jugglery with numbers of poor families. It will deliver at lower cost, and with less chance of abuse.
But it is still a half-solution.
Clout of wheat
To get required calories and stay healthy, a normal human being needs to eat not only foodgrains but also pulses, oils, vegetables and fruits.
And the last four items are generally outside the reach of the poor.
In case of vegetables and fruits, the government may have little role to play in controlling price.
But in case of pulses and oilseeds, the government plays an interventionist role. It pays a minimum support price for pulses and imports edible oils when domestic prices rise.
But when prices of pulses shot up recently, the government’s minimum support price (MSP) for the commodity was less than half the market price.
Farmers didn’t get the benefit of higher prices, consumers had to shell out more, and pulses went completely out of the food basket of the poor. Only traders benefited.
This is not so in the case of wheat. Generally high consumers of chemical fertilisers, diesel and water, wheat-cultivators are supported by a fair if not generous MSP.
Cultivators of pulses, who generally use little fertiliser or irrigated water, and are small and marginal farmers in backward, dryland areas like Bundelkhand, are not so favoured.
The political economy of Indian agriculture works to drive these farmers towards high-input wheat. At the cost of protein needs of the poor.
Only when this trend is reversed can the majority of India’s poor enjoy nutritional security.
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| CSO Partners Update |
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Outstanding Annual Report Awards 2010
The second CSO Partners' Outstanding Annual Report Awards 2010 for the voluntary sector, in association with Financial Management Service Foundation (FMSF), Credibility Alliance (CA) and Spatial Access Advertising Consultancy (SAAC) ...
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Outstanding Annual Report Awards 2010
The second CSO Partners' Outstanding Annual Report Awards 2010 for the voluntary sector, in association with Financial Management Service Foundation (FMSF), Credibility Alliance (CA) and Spatial Access Advertising Consultancy (SAAC), were given away on March 6, 2010 at India Habitat Center, New Delhi.
The award carries a citation and cash prize of Rs 3 lakhs for the winners and Rs 1 lakh each for the two runners-up in each category of small, medium, and large organisations.
The first-prize winners were:
- Large NGO - Childline India Foundation
- Medium NGO - Udayan Care
- Small NGO - Ashadeep
Over 240 NGOs had submitted their annual reports for the awards-an indicator of growing interest in transparency across the voluntary sector.
Launch of NGO Market Place
The launch of NGO Market Place, a portal that provides networking opportunities for the social sector in India, also took place on March 6, 2010 in New Delhi, at the Outstanding Annual Report Awards function.
Speaking on the occasion, Soumitra Ghosh, Founder-CEO, CSO Partners, said, “Through Ngomarketplace.com, NGOs will be able to spread awareness of the work they have undertaken, widen the followers to their social cause and mobilise both financial and non-financial resources.”
The portal is interactive, accessible and synergistic with a clear focus on finding solutions and form lasting partnerships, he said.
Since the launch, three orientation workshop for NGOs has been conducted in Tiruvanamalai, Madurai, and Villipuram, in Tamil Nadu.
Community-need assessment study
A research study for Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company (JUSCO), a subsidiary of Tata Steel, on `community need assessment’ has been completed. The findings of the study, which would help JUSCO in strategising their CSR programme, were shared with the company’s top management.
Review of flood rehabilitation programme
The annual review of the flood rehabilitation programme in Bihar initiated by ICICI Bank was undertaken by making a field visit to SCF-BRB and its partners, Oxfam and its partners, ACE and its partners, and Goonj. The visit included a review of financial systems and procedures.
Seminar on ‘New Directions in Corporate Social Responsibility’
CSO Partners organised a seminar ‘New Directions in Corporate Social Responsibility’, in collaboration with Centre for Development Finance (CDF) and Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) on April 23, 2010 in IFMR’s campus in Chennai. Dr Wayne Visser discussed a new approach, `CSR 2.0: corporate sustainability and responsibility’ illustrating its five principles: creativity, scalability, responsiveness, globality and circularity. Click here to view the presentation
Activities in the pipeline
- CSO Partners is strategising and designing CSR programmes for ICICI Lombard, ICICI branch banking, and ICICI Home Finance.
- NGO Advisory Services (NAS) is to be expanded to more cities so that more NGOs across geographic regions benefit from it. NAS is a platform where identified local expert panellists interact with NGOs bimonthly and provide them their expertise and wider contacts through their network.
- In collaboration with The Livelihood School (a BASIX initiative), CSO Partners is conducting a `Business Responsibility Learning Workshop’ for senior-level CSR practitioners to reflect on selected and systematically researched cases of CSR programmes.
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| Partner Profile |
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GiveIndia: pioneering online donation platform
GiveIndia, an online philanthropy marketplace, was founded by Venkat Krishnan N, an IIM-A alumnus, in the year 2000.
After spending a few years in the corporate world, Venkat set up Eklavya, amongst Ahmedabad’s most innovative schools....
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GiveIndia: pioneering online donation platform
GiveIndia, an online philanthropy marketplace, was founded by Venkat Krishnan N, an IIM-A alumnus, in the year 2000.
After spending a few years in the corporate world, Venkat set up Eklavya, amongst Ahmedabad’s most innovative schools. In the process, he undertook a nationwide survey of schools. His travels across India brought him into contact with numerous NGOs, many of whom were doing admirable work. But they all had the same problem: not enough money.
Later during a visit to the US, he observed that many people in the country give back to society generously. However, Indians are reluctant to donate money. One major reason, he sensed, was that we have no way of knowing whether a donation will be spent sensibly and efficiently.
Most Indian charitable organisations are either too small or too haphazardly managed to maintain detailed and transparent accounts. This makes prospective givers suspicious.
Venkat realised that if there was a mechanism that allowed donors to monitor how and where their contributions went, they would feel confident about giving to good causes.
And thus, in April 2000, GiveIndia was born as a `philanthropic exchange’, which connects worthy NGOs across the country with donors at large.
GiveIndia’s mission is “to promote efficient and effective giving that provides greater opportunities to the poor in India”.
Along with inculcating the habit of giving, the operating model of the organisation works towards ensuring the credibility and transparency of partner NGOs.
The fundamental premise of the operating model is that donors are `investors’ looking for returns of some kind; most commonly, the satisfaction of knowing that their money made a difference to someone else's life.
GiveIndia provides a feedback report for every donation made. This ensures that the donation is used for a good cause, to make a positive impact on the lives of people in need.
Over the last 10 years, GiveIndia has touched millions of lives and raised over Rs 1000 million for its listed NGOs. Over 100,000 donors have used the GiveIndia platform to make a difference.
GiveIndia has been an innovator in strategy. It introduced the concept of marathon-based fundraising in India, through the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon. In year 2008. ICICI Internet Banking in collaboration with CSO Partners, ICICI Foundation, and Give India used the power of ICICI banks Internet banking to energize 55,000 donors to contribute Rs. 3.5 crores in one week for the victims of Bihar Floods.
In 2004, GiveIndia started its own online portal (www.giveindia.org) and introduced a payroll giving programme. Under this programme, promoted among corporates, employees can choose to have a small fixed amount deducted from their salary and channelled to a cause of their choice.
The internet giving is fast becoming the main source of fundraising at GiveIndia. This helps it be amongst the most cost-efficient fund raisers anywhere in the world, with a fund-raising cost of only 9.1%.
GiveIndia is managing for ICICI Bank’s educational initiative, `Read to Lead’. This initiative which is facilitated by ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth, and its partner organization, the ICICI Centre for Elementary Education (ICEE) and CSO Partners and Give India aims to reach out to 100,000 children through different voluntary organisations, facilitating formal schooling, bridge courses and supplemental teaching-learning material. An amount of Rs 1,000 has been earmarked per child annually.
GiveIndia is entirely managing the backend of the programme: NGO due diligence, disbursements, monitoring, feedback, control and case studies for ICICI Bank. It has channelled Rs 80 million till date to 30 NGOs.
GiveIndia is growing from strength to strength and is successfully moving towards making India a giving nation.
For more information, please visit www.giveindia.org Close
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