New Delhi:
Despite almost a decade of high economic growth, about 46 per cent of the country's children are malnourished. Children like four-year-old Vishal in Uttar Pradesh's Sonbhadra district looks like a two-year-old.
Lekha is a single mother, who lives on daily wages. Nearly ten days a month, mother and son can barely manage one meal.
The proposed National Food Security Bill, which was an election pledge by the UPA government, had a huge potential of changing their reality. But the proposed National Food Security Act has shocked the activists.
The draft bill approved by the Group of Ministers is just a legal obligation to supply 25 kg of subsidised rice or wheat a month at Rs 3 to BPL families. The draft bill says the failure to reach this quota to the families would entitle them to a food security allowance.
Activists say the quota actually reduces the current entitlement of 35 kg mandated by Supreme Court orders. Under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, the existing Public Distribution System (PDS) provides for it.
"We realised that this is a complete betrayal to the people of India in the name of food security," said an activist Kavita Srivastava.
In an open letter to the Prime Minister, members of the right to food campaign, a network of over a hundred organizations, have expressed their distress at the minimalist draft.
"I think this law is an opportunity to create a set of obligations on the state, to provision food for all those who either through work or feeding programmes, or through community kitchens or through pension, in different ways," said Harsh Mander, Special Commissioner to the Supreme Court.
For instance, Lekha will not benefit since there are no legal guarantees for single mothers, nor will other vulnerable groups like the old and the disabled. The proposed law also does not address issues of corruption and leakages in the PDS.
Now, the activists are demanding a comprehensive food security, which adds to the poor's rights to sufficient food.