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VIEWPOINT: POLITICALLY CORRECT
Problem Of Plenty
In place of the PDS, the panchayats can organise
food-for-work schemes
By P. Chidambaram
India and poverty
have been allies for as along as one can recall. Therefore, we know how
to deal with poverty and scarcity. When our population multiplied but
agricultural growth stagnated, we did not hesitate to import foodgrains.
PL-480, it was called. We even coined a new phrase: ship-to-mouth.
Plenty is new to us. Certainly, plenty of foodgrains
is a new phenomenon. The Union Government has taken out full-page advertisements
declaring its intention of creating a hunger-free India. Prime Minister
A.B. Vajpayee announced, "We have sufficient stocks of foodgrains.
No one need go hungry in this country." Unfortunately, his writ does
not run throughout this country. People are going hungry in Orissa, in
Bihar, in Rajasthan and in other places. Many have died of malnutrition,
if not starvation. Many more are dying.
 The
Government has 61.6 million tonnes of foodgrains. The stocks were procured
by the Central Government from farmers-mostly those in Punjab, Andhra
Pradesh and Haryana-at prices higher than justified (according to the
Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices).
The procurement, it was justified, was necessary
to support the public distribution system (PDS) and its network of over
four lakh fair price shops. If the PDS justified procurement, then procurement
justified the creation of a behemoth called the Food Corporation of India
(FCI).
It did not matter to the Government that the
PDS required-or absorbed-only 11-16 million tonnes of foodgrains in a
year. The FCI procured wheat and rice with a vengeance as if there would
not be another harvest. Farmers produced more and more, and pressured
their state governments to prevail upon the Central Government to procure
all the stocks they could offer. Quality be damned, moisture content be
damned, just procure what is offered by the farmers. It was a win-win
situation for everybody. Farmers got more money every year, the traders
bought and sold more tonnes of foodgrains to the FCI. State governments
were demonstrably pro-farmer. FCI's budget ballooned to astronomical proportions
and its accountants and godown-keepers juggled with figures of stock (who
can count up to the last tonne of wheat or paddy?). And the rats and the
rodents of India were well-fed and very happy.
The stocks today stand at 61.6 million tonnes.
Yet there are two shameful realities: one, per capita availability of
cereals has declined and consequently, the per capita consumption of cereals
has also declined; and two, in several pockets of India, particularly
the tribal areas, people are going hungry and are dying of malnutrition.
Apart from the PDS, there are several schemes
designed to ensure that food reaches the poor. According to the Government's
advertisement, there is a mid-day meal scheme (where except in Tamil Nadu?).There
are the Annapurna scheme and the food-for-work programme. There is the
Antodaya Anna Yojana ("launched on December 25, 2000") and the
Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana ("being launched"). Yet food
does not reach the poor.
It is my belief that the PDS has outlived its
utility. The PDS indeed works in some states, in Kerala for example. But
by and large PDS is a byword for corruption. The poor need food, but the
better way is to give them the money to buy food. In 1997, the Ministry
of Finance mooted the idea of food coupons, but it was shot down. The
MoF then offered grants to each state based on the number of people below
poverty line (BPL) ; the states rejected that idea too because then procurement
and distribution would be the states' responsibility. Finally, we settled
on the third best alternative of two categories of consumers: BPL and
APL (above poverty line). It is obvious that the system has not worked.
In a particularly difficult year, if the monsoon fails or there is a recession,
a large number of people above the so-called poverty line will go below
the poverty line and the system cannot accommodate such abrupt shifts.
2001 is one such year.
We must find an alternative to PDS. Until then,
we must find a way to reach food to the poor who have neither money nor
work. In my view, only the food-for-work programme has a fair chance of
success, but it must be implemented in a radically different manner. Here
are the steps the Government must take:
# Transport adequate quantities of wheat or
paddy to each panchayat in the drought-affected areas and entrust the
stocks to the panchayat.
# Let the panchayat decide what works it needs
and fix the wage for each unit of work in terms of wheat or rice.
# Allow every villager to draw his requirement
of wheat or rice from the common stock and pay for it by his labour in
any of the specified works.
This way, the village will get the work it needs
and the people will get the food they need.
(The author is a former Indian finance minister.)
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