The aam aadmi got a mixed bag from the Budget. On the positive side, the government has increased allocations for the NREG to Rs 39,100 which is a 144% increase. This should factor in not just the increase in wages to Rs100 but also partially cover the electoral promise of the Congress to extend the 100 day job guarantee in NREG from one member of every rural household to every adult in the household. Second, the promised rationalisation of the misdirected fertiliser subsidy and the extension of the duration of the farm loan waiver till December 2009 will be silver linings. But not all the promises are necessarily as they seem.Consider the ambitious Food Security Act. If this is meant to be a panacea then for rural hunger, a closer look reveals that it is far from it. In the absence of the government coming clean on the BPL numbers, the number of people who will benefit from this scheme remains purely speculative. The NC Saxena committee of the ministry of rural development has asked for 50% of all households in the country to be declared BPL. Unless the the government accepts the recommendations of this committee, it may well be a case of too little, too late.
Secondly, the current entitlement under the Antodaya Anna Yojana which covers nearly 2 crore of the poorest families is 35 kilos of rice / wheat at Rs 3 per kg and Rs 2 per kg respectively. There is therefore a straight reduction of 10kg in terms of entitlements. This is not just for families benefiting from Antodaya Anna Yojana but also for BPL families.
Similarly, if the market price of rice goes above Rs 8.60 paise, the additional ten kilos that BPL families will have to procure will mean that the effective transfer of resources to the household has actually reduced after the introduction of the National Food Security Act. This reduced allocation also goes contrary to the Supreme Court order of January 10th, 2008, in the Right to Food Case which unambiguously states that all families benefiting from the TPDS would be entitled to 35 kg of food grains.
?The author is the principal adviser to the Supreme Court Commissioners on the Right to Food