Food Security Bill is a must

The Food Security Bill to be introduced in the coming monsoon session of Parliament will prove to be a landmark achievement of UPA-11, which has so far been in mess of corruption, and finding itself to come of it. Though the UPA has also taken credit for National Rural Employmement Guarantee Programme (NREGP changed to MNREGP) and Right to Information Act and Right to Education (RTE). They have strengthened the confidence and empowered the weaker sections of society who before the enactment of these Bills felt powerless.

The data may project exaggerated percentage of people above the poverty level but in reality about half of population has still not been able to have their stomach full with even bread and twice a day. Thousands of farmers commit suicide in different parts of the country not because they are living in abundance but because they are forced to live in abject poverty and when poverty and indebtedness becomes unbearable, they take such step in desperation.

National Food Security Bill, which would entitle every below poverty line family access to foodgrain at subsidised rates, would be tabled in parliament’s monsoon session beginning August 1.

The legislation will also be used to bring about broader systemic reforms in the public distribution system.

The rural population is still desperate of poverty. They have been badly stricken by it and the government is blind to their proplem of poverty. It has kept itself so absobed in economic reforms on the dictation of the capitalist nations that it has forgotten the plight of the poor living rural villages.

Whatever GDP growth rate may be shown by the government and on the basis of inflated income of middle class, it claims to have achieved marvellous growth in economy. But the matter of the fact is that there is still more than one -third of population living in abject poverty in rural India.

Congress President and UPA Chairperson Sonia Ganfhi has played a pivotal in convincing the government that Food Security is the need of the hour. That is why if anybody takes credit for this, it is Sonia Gandhi for her realisation of the poverty being faced by the poor people in the country.

As Food is the most essential edible item for human beings and all other living beings to keep them alive, the National Food Security Bill will be the milestone of Manmohan Singh-led UPA-II government.