I/II http://www.hindu.com/2010/07/01/stories/2010070163681400.htm
*1st July, 2010, The Hindu * *NAC looking for expanded mandate* Smita Gupta *Sonia-led council to discuss “procedures” and Food Security Bill* New Delhi: The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), in its second avatar, is looking to expand its mandate. On Thursday, when its members assemble for its first substantive meeting, the NAC will discuss “procedures,” alongside the crucial — and now controversial — Food Security Bill, while a sub-committee will tackle the Communal Violence Bill. The Communal Violence Bill will come up before the NAC on July 15. NAC sources said some of the new members felt that a large swathe of civil society outside the council should be engaged as part of its deliberations and research organisations employed to conduct independent evaluations of ongoing government programmes. Also, the NAC should have a larger reach than what it had in its first tenure, the new members said. Controversial? This could be controversial, the sources said. For, this sort of expanded mandate would mean the NAC clashing with the Planning Commission and earning the wrath of the State governments. “I am of the opinion,” an NAC member (who was there in the first term as well) told The Hindu, “we should confine our dealings to the Union Ministries and to making policy recommendations. We can't be doing the Planning Commission's job, we can't take over monitoring of the State governments.” Asked why these issues did not arise in NAC 1, he said, “Last time, things just evolved.” Apart from this, the key issue will be the Food Security Bill. Harsh Mander, a new member, who has been an active food rights campaigner, will be making a presentation on Thursday, and it will then be discussed. This proposal, sources said, includes an Act that promises a monthly quota of 35 kg of cereals at Rs. 3 a kg per household; multilayered classification of target groups going beyond the standard below the poverty line (BPL) definition; ensuring nutritional requirements for the most vulnerable groups such as infants, small children and the aged through midday meals; and appointing State food commissioners as part of a grievance redress mechanism.. Hard battle ahead Given that the draft Bill, now under discussion by an Empowered Group of Ministers promises much less, it looks as though it will be a long hard battle for the NAC. The draft Bill cleared by the EGoM in March delinked food security from nutritional security; recommended a blanket definition of BPL families without any provision for the most vulnerable; suggested a monthly quota of 25 kg of rice/wheat without fixing the price; introducing the concept of food security allowance to allow the government to provide cash if grain is unavailable; and a grievance redress mechanism left to individual State governments to set up. II. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Food-Security-Bill-set-for-radical-rewrite/articleshow/6117294.cms <http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Food-Security-Bill-set-for-radical-rewrite/articleshow/6117294.cms> Food Security Bill set for radical rewrite 2 Jul 2010, 0321 hrs IST,M Rajshekhar,ET Bureau NEW DELHI: The National Advisory Council (NAC), it appears, is set to radically rewrite the the Food Security Bill. The meeting of the NAC, which discussed the draft bill prepared by the government, was of the view that the Centre should move beyond the traditional APL-BPL faultline and aim for an inclusive Bill. Universalisation, said NAC member A K Shivakumar, sits better with the spirit of the Bill. That said, the bill could look at evolving a self-selecting character with some exclusionary criteria. The members also agreed the bill had to go beyond offering subsidised grains and offer nutritional security. In other words, it might offer varieties like jowar, bajra, ragi, etc, which would make the bill more nutritionally advantageous while also making it self-selecting — the Indian affluent stopped eating coarse cereals a while ago. Further, more affluent parts of the society, like government employees and others, could be excluded from the purview of the bill. An approach, pegged around self-selection and exclusionary criteria, might also help the country generate more empirical estimates about the incidence of poverty — on an annual and seasonal basis. On the whole, said Mr Shivakumar, “about 80% of rural India and 40% of urban India might come under the ambit of the bill.” In all, he said, 60-70% of the country might access the scheme. In the meeting, chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the members also discussed different ways of rolling out the Right to Food programme. The NREGA, for instance, had started with 200 poor districts and then scaled up. Here too, one option which was discussed was that the Bill could be first rolled out in the poorest 150 or so districts. Another approach discussed was that the entitlement should initially be pegged at about 15 kilos on average, with the poor getting slightly more. This could gradually be ramped up to the full complement of 35 kilos. The members also discussed the desirability of perhaps moving from a per household allocation to a per capita allocation. And the need for a special focus on disadvantaged groups like the aged, the destitute, primitive tribes and those suffering from debilitating diseases also came up for discussion. At the same time, there are several unresolved questions. Procurement itself, said NAC member Mirai Chatterjee, needed scrutiny since the NAC wants to expand the scheme to provide coarse cereals, oilseeds and pulses. The issue of pricing of foodgrain — whether it should be priced at Rs 2 or 3 — will be taken up later. Ms Chatterjee said the emphasis of Thursday’s deliberations was more on the macro issues. The meeting was attended by all the NAC members, namely, Prof MS Swaminathan, Dr Ram Dayal Munda, Narendra Jadhav, Pramod Tandon, Jean Dreze, Aruna Roy, Madhav Gadgil, NC Saxena, AK Shiva Kumar, Deep Joshi, Anu Aga, Farah Naqvi, Harsh Mander and Mirai Chatterjee. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to greenyo...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
