Activists slam food security bill

Activists have blasted the government's draft food security bill, approved by the empowered group of ministers, accusing it of minimising government's obligations and restricting people's entitlements.

A group of activists under the Right to Food Campaign banner, urged prime minister Manmohan Singh to thrash the draft of the Food Security Bill. There have been major differences between the government and the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), which has been demanding a comprehensive legislation covering food security.

Among those who have signed the plea by the Right to Food Campaign, slamming the Singh government, are Aruna Roy, an NAC member, and Jean Dreze, a former council member, besides Binayak Sen, a civil rights activist.

"The bill interprets food security only as distribution of cereals and cooked meals and is completely silent on pulses, millets and oil," said the open letter to the prime minister. "We reject this farce of a bill and demand that the government sincerely acts towards alleviating hunger and malnutrition in the country. We believe that such a bill in fact does more damage than good and must be rejected."

The activists accused the government of not showing any commitment towards nutritional security, or considering production, procurement, storage and distribution as an integrated process to address issues of food and nutritional security.

They also lashed out at the proposed cash transfers in lieu of foodgrains and said it was meant to enable the entry of organised retail. By giving cash, people would be at the mercy of food retailers and cartels, leading to more corruption than the projected leakages in the public distribution system (PDS), they averred.