New Delhi:
The National Food Security Bill, a centrepiece of the ruling government's campaign in 2009, has been cleared by a parliamentary committee today and will now be sent for review to the Food Ministry and the cabinet before it's brought to Parliament.
The bill says 75% of the rural population and 50% of the poor in urban India - about 800 million people - will be entitled to five kilos of subsidised grain per month. Rice will be made available at Rs 3 a kilo; wheat will cost Rs 2 a kilo and cereal will be sold for Rs 1 per kilo.
For this year, the government expects to spend about 1 lakh 30 thousand crores on food subsidies.
The government would like to be able to seek re-election in 2014 by highlighting that it has delivered on a major promise made by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and other leaders of her party during their campaign in the last general election.
The scheme will be linked to the Aadhar scheme which provides every citizen with a unique identification number that's linked to a database that includes the biometrics of all card-holders.
In earlier versions, the Food Security Bill assigned subsidised grains on the basis of "priority" and "general" groups, which were demarcated on the basis of poverty levels.
(With inputs from Agencies)