In its first innings, the National Advisory Council (NAC) was credited with pushing UPA-1 to enact its most significant legislations?namely the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Right to Information Act. After the ?office for profit? controversy caused Sonia Gandhi to resign as chairman, NAC was disbanded in 2008. It was reconstituted last year after the resounding Congress victory of 2009, which the party attributed to its big ticket, redistributive schemes. At its first meeting in June 2010, the chairperson (Sonia Gandhi again) observed that people had high expectations of the NAC. Members agreed that NAC?s ?primary focus ought to be on pro-poor programmes?, with ?special focus on social policy and the rights of disadvantaged groups?. As we will list, in its second innings, NAC has been pushing its social sector agenda with renewed ambition and expansiveness.

Land acquisition

Against the backdrop of a raging Bhatta-Parsaul controversy, NAC-2 has revisited the NAC-1 suggestion that ?the public purpose of the proposed acquisition must be established by a well defined, informed and transparent process, which enables concerned citizens and potentially affected people to legally challenge this?. It has taken issue with how public purpose is defined in the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 2009, especially insofar as the Bill provides for state acquisition of land for private for-profit companies, wherein ?land for any other purpose useful to the general public for which land has been purchased by a person under lawful contract or is having the land to the extent of 70%, but the remaining 30% of the total area required for the project is yet to be acquired?, veering to favour 100% acquisition by the government instead, with compensation for those who lose land fixed at six times the registered sale deed value, including solatium, and with those who don?t lose land but lose livelihoods compensated with a grant amounting to 10 days of minimum wages per month for 33 years.

But, as the NAC discussion paper on the matter explicates, there remain divisions within NAC about whether it is appropriate for the government to acquire land for private companies. While NC Saxena favours this, ?since the economy is moving away from being predominantly agricultural, to one based on manufacturing and service industry?, Aruna Roy and Harsh Mander (like NAC-I) favour the explicit exclusion of government land acquisition for projects that have as their ?primary objective the benefit of a private interest?.

At the first briefing by the newly-created Group of Ministers on media affairs, P Chidambaram promised that UPA-2 will introduce the long-awaited Land Acquisition Bill in the next parliamentary session. Meanwhile, our concern is that if the private sector is disallowed from land acquisition, this will increase project delays and government favouritism.

Food security

This is probably the NAC?s most beloved baby after MGNREGA, but the contours of the Food Security Bill etched out by it have created a lot of controversy. The Bill is still not in the public domain, but what NAC recommended in October 2010 was (a) legal entitlements to subsidised foodgrains for at least 75% of India?s population?90% in rural areas and 50% in urban areas, (b) monthly entitlement of 35 kg for priority households at a subsidised price of R1 per kg for millets, R2 for wheat and R3 for rice, and (c) monthly entitlement of 20 kg for general households, (d) with the above entitlements achieved by 2014.

Food and consumer affairs minister KV Thomas has said that the draft Bill is ready and it is ?in line with what is in the mind of Madam Sonia Gandhi?. Further, ?The principle of Sonia Gandhi is that every citizen of the country should get legal cover toward a certain quantity of nutritious food, not simply foodgrains.? But if NAC recommendations are being accepted, the government?s subsidy burden will rise substantially, something that can?t possibly be healthy given its already stretched finances.

Sceptics (including a committee headed by PMEAC chairman C Rangarajan) also fear the impact of the resulting market distortions on food inflation, not to mention that fact that a central dictate will be at odds with state specificities and innovations. Plus, as our columnists have asked, how does any government justify giving preferential treatment to 75% of its population?

Lokpal Bill

Via its working group on transparency, accountability and governance, the subject matter of the Lokpal Bill has also been one of NAC?s priority areas. But NAC declared in April that it would stop dealing with the matter to ?avoid duplicacy? with the joint committee comprising a group of ministers and civil society representatives for drafting the Lokpal Bill. Anna Hazare says he expects the Bill to be in Parliament by August.

In a letter to Hazare last month, Sonia Gandhi wrote that she believed in the ?urgent necessity to combat graft and corruption? and that the Lokpal Bill was very much a part of the NAC agenda. And despite the press release about avoiding duplicacy, NAC members have made it clear that they will be bringing out a discussion paper on ?the problem of corruption?.

MGNREGA wages

It is in this instance that the differences between NAC and the government became most obvious. When the former first recommended that the wages paid for work done under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme should be at par with minimum wages in each state, the latter (against the backdrop of an energetic debate on connections between this scheme and inflation) put its foot down. But it then decided to benchmark the wages to inflation, with remuneration expected to go up by between 17% and 30% as a result. The Planning Commission clarified that states would bear the additional burden if the minimum wages notified by them were higher than those fixed by the Centre for work under the employment guarantee Act.

Communal harmony

A draft of the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011, is available on the NAC Website, open to public comments till June 4, 2011. Currently at 64 pages, the Bill will then be passed to the Union home and law ministries. The Bill proposes a National Authority to prevent and control ?any act or acts of communal and targeted violence including its build-up, incitement or outbreak thereof?, plus ?monitor due investigation, prosecution and trial of offences under this Act in a fair and impartial manner?, and requites central and state governments as well as public servants ?to respond to advisories or recommendations of the National Authority and submit an

Action Taken Report within 30 days?. The BJP has expressed strong opposition to the Bill, saying the law makes only members of the ?majority community culpable?, intrudes ?into the domain of the state? and is ?fraught with dangerous consequences?.

renuka.bisht@expressindia.com