The formal announcement of the constitution of the National Advisory Council (NAC) appears to have unleashed some action in the bureaucracy to speed up work on the proposed National Food Security law.
The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on Food Security, which has not considered the issue for about two months now, is slated to meet next week to pick up the threads. In the last decision regarding the proposed Bill, the EGoM had asked the Planning Commission to work out the numbers for different options and suggestions by the political leadership.
With the proposed food security law likely to gather further momentum after the formal constitution of the National Advisory Council (NAC) under the chairmanship of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the rural development ministry, on its part, has also decided to speed up the process of identification of rural below poverty line (BPL) families. In this context, the ministry has decided to conduct pilot studies across different parts of the country for fine-tuning the parameters of rural BPL household identification.
?After consultation with experts and suggestions from some state governments, we have decided to conduct pilot studies across different parts of the country to fine-tune the methodology for the final rural BPL survey,? rural development minister CP Joshi said on Wednesday, indicating that the studies will be time-bound. He added that the inputs from the pilot study will be factored into the final methodology for the rural BPL survey.
The recommendations of a committee headed by NC Saxena, who has been nominated to the NAC, for rural BPL identification will be used during the pilot studies to finalise a BPL identification system to be adopted across the country.
While the in-principle approval for conducting pilot studies was given before the announcement of the composition of the NAC, the move follows the setting up of another eight-member expert panel to suggest the methodology for identification of the urban BPL population.
The impetus being given to the BPL surveys across rural and urban areas holds significance in view of the fact that proper BPL identification holds the key to successful rolling out of the right to food that was promised by the Congress in the last elections. With the government machinery already burdened with the ongoing census operations, the final BPL survey is unlikely to be conducted before the completion of Census 2011 in March next year.