With the inauguration of 100 Aahaar centers in 29 districts of Odisha on April 14 last, the State Government has ushered into a ‘cooked-food-welfarism’ era. This is the second phase of expansion of the scheme that was commenced in April last year in 20 centers of Bhubaneswar, Cuttack Sambalur, Rourkela and Brahmapur urban local bodies.
Originating as an experimental programme, the Aahaar scheme has assumed the proportion and status of a ‘flag-ship’ programme of the State Government. Popularly known as the Rs 5-Bhata-Dalma scheme, it provides lunch at subsidised cost to the beneficiaries on working days in urban and semi-urban areas of Odisha. The meal is subsidised by Rs 20 by corporate organisations.
A typical Aahar centre is a small restaurant with provision of safe drinking water and sanitation infrastructure. It is managed by the State and district level administrations headed the ‘Aahaar societies.’ The food is cooked and distributed by private organisations, through centralised and decentralised systems.
It is not that such a programme was born in Odisha first. The Tamil Nadu Government also runs such subsidised cooked food schemes with budgetary allocation. The neighbouring State Chhattisgarh runs the scheme in the name ‘Annapurna Bhat-Dal scheme’ where food is given at Rs 5 to the beneficiaries while the State Government subsidises the cost. It must be remembered that Chhattisgarh topped the States in India in uncooked food security regime by having its own food security act.
The Odisha Government might have taken the cue from Tamil Nadu or Chhattisgarh. But the timing of massive lunching of the scheme before March, 2017 Panchayat polls forecasts an expansion of Aahaar to 314 blocks in coming days.
Odisha has had many sad stories about poverty and hunger. During the colonial period in 1866, the State was hit by a big famine called the ‘Naanka Durbhikaha’ killing more than one million poor people. After independence, during 1965-66, hunger deaths of thousands people were reported from the drought hit erstwhile Kalahandi- Koraput district. Responding to media reports on child sale for food, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Kalahandi in 1984. later, former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao declared a special project called KBK. In 1985-86, 1988-89 and 2003, starvation deaths were reported in the State at a bigger scale. Odisha is one of the prime thought contributors to the need of a National Food Security Act. During pre-NFSA period, special food grains were allotted to all beneficiaries of KBK region. After coming to power in 2000, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik faced the situation of poverty and hunger in the State. In August 2008, the BJD Government declared Rs 2/kg rice covering 55 lakh beneficiaries in KBK and non-KBK regions. Again in January 2013, he announced Re l-a-kg scheme which brought him success in 2014 general elections. In 2015-2016 again, he has come up with the subsidised cooked food welfare scheme. The State Government has also begun full scale implementation of the NFSA. It is debatable if the scheme is need-based or a populist good-will projectIJ
Food welfarism is not a concept of a few State Governments alone but is part of food security ideology of Union Government. Out of Rs2. 27 lakh crore of major subsidies in fiscal year 2015-2016, the Union Government provides Rs l.24 lakh crore to food subsides. The big food subsidy indicates the importance of food politics in India.
large scale corruption and vote bank politics in food schemes suits political parties. There is no ideological opposition to the NFSA. In this large family of food-welfare schemes, cooked food welfarism constitutes a prominent component. The midday meal (MDM) programme for schoolchildren virtually converts schools into restaurants. The power of food politics silences the voice of nation builders who are worried about the future of our children as schools waste time in cooking and food management. Now, a few State Governments have taken the cooked food scheme forward to an ‘Adult cooked food’ programme.
The critics of the cooked and uncooked subsidised food schemes see these efforts as curative measures of poverty and hunger in the country but not preventive solutions. They raise the question of root causes of poverty and hunger in the State and the country and expect the Governments to mitigate these causes which lie in economic structures and systems.
When the World Bank raised the poverty line in 2015 from one dollar to two dollars per day, the nations were uncomfortable as it showed more and more systemic exclusion of middle class and poor people from the new economic order. As nations have been accepting the liberalisation-privatisation-globalisation regime, the policy makers have to find appropriate structural reforms so that national and State economic models become middleclass and lower class inclusive. Unless they evolve structural mechanism to combat poverty and hunger, the food welfarism will be an end in itself without meaningful transition from welfarism to the final path of economic and food security. Finally the day, when the World Trade Organisation (WTO) issues restrictions, the food subsidy regime will collapse, leading to chaos in our country. In fact, the policies of the World Bank or WTO have to change and they have to take responsibility of economic exclusion. Why the World Bank is fond of giving 1.5billion dollar loan to the Government of India on ‘Swachha Bharat’ but not on agriculture or small and medium manufacture sectorIJ Why it gives a loan which is given forward as a welfare scheme which ultimately is a bad loanIJ These institutions are also getting into politics of populist and welfarism loans.
The new Company Act with mandatory provision of CSR has become an opportunity for the Odisha Government. But there is a problem here too. Corporate houses, being driven by profit motive and having past records of unethical practices, might take undue benefit from State Government by helping in the Aahaar scheme. So far, the Central PSUs have remained away from associating with Aahaar which the ruling BJD criticises as Central politics against the State Government. But there are many ways like water, agriculture, alternative power where CSR funds of Central PSUs can be utilised. There is always relevance of food-welfarism but the scheme should work as interim solutions, backed by permanent programmes of poverty and hunger alleviation. In future, it appears that many States will take up cooked food welfare schemes, thus decentralising food politics.