Food Security Bill may be delayed

The proposed National Food Security Bill is unlikely to see the light of the day before Parliament's winter session. Two key reasons are divergence between the government and the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) over legal guarantee to non-BPL (below poverty line) families and food availability to sustain provisions of the legislation.



The differing views came to the fore on Friday during a meeting of the NAC, which held consultations with top functionaries from the Planning Commission and ministries of Food and Public Distribution, Women and Child Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation to firm up the contours of the proposed Bill.



Council members admitted some degree of divergence with the government on the issue of legal guarantee to non-BPL families and food availability to meet various provisions of the proposed legislation. At the same time, they also said the gap between the government and the NAC was narrowing down over the course of five council sittings.



"The divergence is getting less and less...We feel the government can do better to procure more foodgrain to sustain the proposed legislation. There is still some degree of divergence regarding the legal guarantee to non-BPL families," said a NAC member .



NAC member MS Swaminathan said: "Deputy Chairman Planning Commission made a detailed presentation regarding the limits of affordability of various provisions being considered in the proposed legislation while indicating Planning Commission's support to the proposals in the wake of millennium development goals." He said NAC would firm up definite recommendations based on governmental department inputs.



With Parliament's winter session slated to be convened in the first half of November, the formulation of the legislation may get delayed because the NAC will meet on October 23 to finalise its recommendations.



Another likely reason for the delay is that Food Minister Sharad Pawar had earlier said his ministry would have to consult state governments over the NAC recommendations before seeking Cabinet approval to take it to Parliament.



"The working group took note of issues that emerged from the discussion. A further round of discussions is to take place before the proposal of the working group could be finalised," said a press communique issued by the NAC after a marathon meeting presided over by Sonia Gandhi.



The statement said the NAC would meet again on October 23 to deliberate on the definite recommendations to be worked out by its working group on food security under member Harsh Mander.




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