Cabinet clears revised Food Security Bill

The subsidy bill is estimated at Rs 1,24,747 crore at 2013-14 costs,given that the market price of rice is around Rs 20 per kg and wheat is about Rs 16 per kg. The annual intake of grain to implement the Bill is expected to be over 61 million tonnes.

“The revised Food Bill has been cleared by Cabinet. We will try to bring amendments to the Food Bill in Parliament before Friday,” said Food Minister K V Thomas. Most of the amendments,numbering over 50,have been made in line with the recommendations of the parliamentary standing committee.

According to the National Food Security Bill 2011,rice will be sold at ration shops at Rs 3 per kg,wheat at Rs 2 per kg and millet at Re 1 per kg in the first three years of the implementation of the Act. A pet project of Congress president Sonia Gandhi,the Bill is expected to become one of the major poll planks of the UPA in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

The revised Bill proposes only one category of beneficiaries,with uniform entitlement of 5 kg foodgrains per month per person. Earlier,beneficiaries had been divided into two categories — priority and general households — with different entitlements and prices. The Centre had proposed 7 kg of rice or wheat or millet per person per month for priority category at Rs 3,Rs 2 and Re 1 per kg respectively,and at least 3 kg per person per month for general households at 50 per cent of support price.

The revised Bill also seeks to take care of concerns aired by states by protecting existing foodgrain allocation to them,subject to their average offtake in the last three years. The Centre would also provide financial assistance to states for meeting expenses of transportation,handling of foodgrains and margins to ration shops dealers.