New Delhi, June 26: Sonia Gandhi has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to enact a law to ensure food security for the poor and has given him a prototype for the legislation.
The Congress president raised the issue in the first letter, dated June 12, that she wrote to the Prime Minister after he was re-elected.
“One of the most important commitments made by our party in the Lok Sabha election manifesto relates to the enactment of a National Food Security Act to ensure food security to the poor and vulnerable sections of the society. I am sending a copy of the draft legislation for your consideration,” she said in the letter.
The draft, “Right to Food (Guarantee of Safety and Security) Act”, enshrines freedom from hunger and malnutrition as a fundamental right. It “provides for and asserts the physical, economic and social right of all citizens to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with an adequate diet necessary to lead an active and healthy life with dignity”.
Some of the salient features of the draft law are:
Besides families living below the poverty line, a wide variety of beneficiaries will be provided 35kg of cereals every month at Rs 3 per kg.
The list includes households headed by single women, those suffering from leprosy, HIV and mental illnesses, bonded labour, destitutes dependent on alms for survival for 20 days a month, landless agricultural workers and self-employed artisans.
The other suggested beneficiaries are “occasionally vulnerable” rag-pickers, construction workers, street vendors, rickshaw-pullers, domestic workers and those already covered by the Antyodaya Anna Yojana.
A national survey will be done every five years to identify the recipients, who would be issued photo ID cards in consultation with local bodies.
Senior citizens, single women and physically challenged persons can eat at the Integrated Child Development Scheme centres or at midday meals in schools.
Families affected by natural disasters and communal violence will also get 35kg of cereals at Rs 3.
Double food quota (70kg) for below-poverty-line households that have children below six, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
The draft law explains ways to implement the scheme and prescribes penalties for flawed delivery.
Congress sources said Sonia was clear that if the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the Right to Information were the high points of the UPA’s social programmes in its first tenure, food security would be the hallmark of its second term.
The rural job scheme and the information act were conceived and piloted by the National Advisory Council (NAC), which Sonia headed.
Although the council has ceased to exist, sources said Sonia and Rahul Gandhi would ensure the government didn’t move “too right of the centre” and veer away from its “fundamental commitments to the poor and the unempowered”.
“It took two to three years to put the NREGA in place. It will take as much time for the food security scheme to get going properly. So there is no problem with doing the spadework right away,” a source said.
Government sources claimed the delayed and below-normal monsoon wouldn’t affect food security.
Congress sources said Sonia had conveyed to the Prime Minister that the government must reintroduce the amendment bill to the Land Acquisition Act and have it passed in the budget session.
–Agencies