A day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh complimented her Government for the all round progress made by Tamil Nadu under her leadership, J Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister, blasted the UPA Government under his leadership for ignoring the interests of the State while it introduced the controversial Food Security Bill.
In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister on Saturday, the Chief Minister said the Food Security Act 2013 introduced as an Ordinance by the UPA Government “raises the spectre of food insecurity in the country”. She also warned that the ill-conceived Ordinance would hit hard the entire urban population in the country. “The fundamental question of making adequate food grains available has not been addressed in this Act,” Jayalalithaa has pointed out in the letter.
“Section 3(2) of the Ordinance envisages that nationwide, 75 per cent of the rural population and 50 per cent of the urban population are to be covered as households eligible for allocation of subsidised food grains. This is a totally arbitrary allocation principle with no rational basis. When the edifice of food security in a State is based on a much applauded Universal PDS, clumsy attempts at targeting and arbitrary cut off points of this nature will severely compromise food security and cause great hardship to the people,” Jayalalithaa said in the letter, excerpts of which were released to the media on Saturday.
She said the National Food Security Ordinance 2013 was promulgated unilaterally and hastily by the Union Government. “Though the Ordinance claims to provide Food Security to all, unfortunately, contrary to such a claim, there are several flaws in the Ordinance which have created serious apprehensions and actually raise the spectre of food insecurity for a State like Tamil Nadu. Very disappointingly, and as has become the Central Government’s wont, none of the serious concerns expressed by us have been addressed in the hurriedly promulgated Ordinance,” Jayalalithaa said in the letter.
The Chief Minister pointed out that the Universal Public Distribution System in Tamil Nadu has won international accolades as well as the compliments of the Supreme Court of the country. The Tamil Nadu Government has been addressing the issue of food security of all without exception. “Historically, the system has been built on a combination of procurement of rice within the State and a reliance on assured allocations from the Central Pool of food grains. To preserve this hard earned food security, it is essential to ensure that the present level of allocation of food grains from the Central Pool is retained without any diminution. Therefore, we had repeatedly requested that a proviso be inserted in the relevant clause of the Food Security Bill to protect the existing level of allocation of food grains for Tamil Nadu. I am deeply dismayed to find that the Ordinance as promulgated contains no such Proviso,” Jayalalithaa said.
She also questioned the lower level of allocation to urban areas in the Act. “There is no food production in urban areas to supplement household consumption. In such a situation, the urban 2 coverage should be 100 per cent or at least 75 per cent on par with rural areas. It should not be forgotten that the Public Distribution System was originally put in place to ensure affordable supply of food primarily in urban areas. Tamil Nadu with an urban population of 49 per cent has the highest level of urbanisation amongst major States in the country and is going to be particularly hard hit by this ill-conceived and invidious discrimination against urban areas in the Ordinance,” she said.
What has annoyed the Chief Minister is the fear that the Ordinance will rob the State of its present monthly allocation of food grains from the central pool. The monthly allocation of food grains for Tamil Nadu will decline by nearly 1 lakh tonnes from the present level of 2.96 lakh tonnes. “Preserving the Universal Public Distribution System in Tamil Nadu will then cost the State exchequer a net additional Rs 3,000 crore per annum. An even graver concern is the uncertainty of availability, which would expose the State to higher vulnerability of physical shortage, especially during scarcity periods,” Jayalalithaa said.