This is to get votes for the UPA which has broken the records of corruption.
Even if food bill is implemented, the benefeciaries will be the rich and not the poor who dont know what is happening in India.
The main problem in India is illiteracy and not reading paper/news. They are just working as slaves for the rich community in many States and not aware what Govt is offering for them to get their valued votes.
When Govt is voted to Power, they will start corruption.
Regds
Ravindran
--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 4/9/13, Raghunandanan <kgraghunandanan@rediffmail.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [www.keralites.net] Food Security Bill - Boon or Bane?
To: Keralites@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, 4 September, 2013, 5:12 AM
Dear Friends,
Most of the people are already aware that these gimmicks are
being used to get votes. There is no way out, because power
is with politicians and not with the people.
From: Keralites Mails <keralites.mails@gmail.com>
Sent: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 23:12:14
To: Keralites@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [www.keralites.net] Food Security Bill - Boon or
Bane?
The KING may enjoy in an
equal degree the three
pursuits of life, CHARITY, DESIRE, and WEALTH, which are
inter-dependent upon each other. Any one of these
three, when enjoyed
in
excess, HURTS NOT ONLY THE
OTHER TWO, BUT ALSO ITSELF.
Kautilya holds
that WEALTH
and WEALTH
alone is IMPORTANT, in as much as
CHARITY
and DESIRE
depend upon WEALTH for their realisation.
So
the FOOD SECURITY BILL, which is based on CHARITY, will
hurt not only
DESIRE & WEALTH of the NATION but also the scheme
itself.
Gangadharan Nair
On 30 August 2013 20:45, Thomas Mathew <thomasmathew47@hotmail.com> wrote:
Dear Mr. Nair
Thanks for the note about Food Security Bill. It
has been very informative.
In
Kerala at least, the number of BPL number is exaggerated as
majority of
the people in the list are earning much more than the cut
for BPL. I
know where the family of a gulf employee whose wife is
a college
lecturer is enjoying BPL benefit. How can an unskilled
daily labourer
who is getting Rs.500 a day; or a skilled persons like
masons whose
daily rate is Rs. 900 a day can be treated as BPL. Remember,
earlier
there were reports that Govt. employees are enjoying the
benefits of
BPL. Some of them surrendered the card on threat of
disciplinary action,
but nothing further is heard about those who did not
surrender their
BPL cards. There may be only less than 10% of the
families, who may
not have an earning member in the family, and who may really
need to be
included in the BPL list.
Being an honest tax paying citizen of the
country, I
feel cheated that the tax I pay is being used to give
subsidies to
undeserving people. I recollect a TV programme in US
where a lady was
shouting that the persons who get free food coupons from
Govt. are
buying lobsters which cost more than 12 dollars a pound,
where as the
tax payers, whose money is being used to pay for the food
coupons cannot
afford lobsters. A similar situation will come or is
already there, the
money being spent for the BPL people on food subsidy,
is being spent
at the beverage corporation outlets These subsidies
will make the
Indians a lazy lot, depending on freebies coming from
Government.
T. Mathew
To:
From: pnair1966@yahoo.com
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 22:10:38 -0700
Subject: [www.keralites.net] Food
Security Bill - Boon or Bane?
Food Security Bill -
Boon or Bane?
·
The Food Security Bill
has been tabled and passed by the Lok Sabha or the lower
house of the
Parliament of India. From here the bill will move to the
Rajya Sabha or the
upper house and then go to the President for the final
signature. Once the
signature is secured then this becomes the law of the land.
There has been
quite a furor in the media about this bill, is it good, or
is it bad? Let's see
what this means for us:
·
What
is the bill all about anyway?
·
The Food Security Bill
has been tabled with the noble intention of providing food
grains to the poor
of India at very subsidized rates, so that even someone who
is below the
International poverty line (earning less than $1.25 a day
–according to the
World Bank, 2008)
·
The bill aims to provide
subsidized food grain to around 67 percent of India's
1.2 billion people*. As
per the provisions of the bill, beneficiaries would get rice
at Rs 3/kg, wheat
at Rs 2/kg, and coarse grains at Rs 1/kg. These rates would
be valid for three
years. Every pregnant woman and lactating mother would get
free meal during
pregnancy till six months after child birth. They will also
get a maternity
benefit of Rs 6,000 in installments. Children up to 14 years
would get free
meals. In case of non-supply of food grains, states will
have to pay food
security allowance to beneficiaries.*
·
The
Good
·
Is,of course, the
intention. India is home to approximately one-third of the
world's poor with
approximately 70% of the population living at less than $2 a
day*. Given the
exchange rate and the beating that the rupee has taken to
the dollar, this
number would have swelled. The plunging value of the Rupee
is another evil
plaguing the system which we will not discuss now. Coming
back to the topic,
with such a large percentage of the population living in
such conditions it
would only be humane to provide food grains to them at
subsidized rates, given
the fact that food grain production is at a high and most of
it is going waste
due to poor infrastructure. The wastage of precious food
grain and the plight
of the farmer is another evil plaguing the system which we
will not discuss
now. It is definitely a better idea to distribute this to
the poor than to let
it rot and spoil.
·
The idea also is that if
the poor are well fed then schemes like the NREGA (National
Rural Employment
Guarantee Act) will benefit, a fit worker will work more and
harder leading to
an overall rise in rural productivity. Sound
logic.
·
The
Bad
·
Is, of course, the
intention. If the intention was to feed the poor then why
wasn't this bill
passed a year or two ago. Why pass it on the cusp of the
elections to the Lok
Sabha? A vote gathering tactic? Or genuine concern, the
interpretation is
yours, dear reader.
·
There can be another
argument that giving away free food is fine but what does
one do when people
realize that they don't need to work hard for food and the
government is
providing them with what they need. They may stop being
productive and become
lazy. And will they stop at food? They may demand free
clothing and free places
to stay. What prevents the Government, four years hence, to
come up with a clothing
security bill? Or a "Right to own a Television" bill?
Where do we draw the
line? Food for thought, isn't it (please pardon the pun,
dear reader!).
·
Then there is the
question of the track record of this Government, which has
been absolutely
wonderful given the spotless record of its members and the
wonderful ability to
execute all plans to perfection, the future seems bright!
Please pardon the
sarcasm, dear reader, with scams abound can we genuinely
believe that the right
amount of grain will reach the right people? Again something
which we will not
discuss now.
·
Do we have the
infrastructure to ensure that the food grain is properly
distributed? What will
we use? Trucks, Trains? With burgeoning diesel prices and
poor power
infrastructure, can we assure all those poor people that the
food grain will
reach them? Can the Government bear subsidies on food and
diesel? Unanswered
questions these.
·
And
The Ugly, oops meaning the Numbers
·
Coming to the crux of
this issue. With no balance in the balance of payments, will
adding this huge
cost help the Government in any way? A closer look at the
numbers below:
·
Number of people living
below the poverty line in India - 68.7% of the population of
1.2 billion
(according to Wikipedia). That works out to 824 million
people who, according
to the bill will get 5 kg of rice, wheat and coarse cereals
per month per
individual at a fixed price of Rs 3, 2, 1, respectively. To
put things in
perspective the population of the US stands at 300 million,
Brazil at 193
million and Indonesia at 237 million (these are the
world's most populous
countries after China and India).
·
Source:
Wikipedia
·
The government estimates
suggest that food security will cost Rs 1,24,723 crore per
year. But that is
just one estimate. The Commission for Agricultural Costs and
Prices (CACP) of
the Ministry of Agriculture in a research paper titled
National Food Security
Bill – Challenges and Options puts the cost of the food
security scheme over a
three year period at Rs 6,82,163 crore. During the first
year the cost to the
government has been estimated at Rs. 2,41,263 crore. Another
economist writing
for The Indian Express put the cost of the bill at Rs
3,14,000 crore or around
3% of the gross domestic product (GDP)#.
·
In order to properly
understand the situation we need to express the cost of food
security as a
percentage of the total receipts (less borrowings) of the
government.
·
The receipts of the
government for the year 2013-2014 are projected at Rs
11,22,799 crore. Food
security will also mean a higher expenditure for the
government in the days to
come. The government's estimated cost of food security
comes at 11.10% (Rs
1,24,723 expressed as a % of Rs 11,22,799 crore) of the
total receipts. The
CACP's estimated cost of food security comes at 21.5% (Rs
2,41,623 crore
expressed as a % of Rs 11,22,799 crore) of the total
receipts. According to the
Indian Express on July 6th, 2013, the cost of
food security comes at
around 28% of the total receipts (Rs 3,14,000 crore
expressed as a % of Rs
11,22,799 crore)#.
·
Once we express the cost
of food security as a percentage of the total estimated
receipts of the
government, during the current financial year, we see how
huge the cost of food
security really is. This is something that doesn't come
out when the cost of
food security is expressed as a percentage of GDP. In this
case the estimated
cost is in the range of 1-3% of GDP. But the government does
not have the
entire GDP to spend. It can only spend what it
earns.
·
Conclusion
·
While the intentions
behind the Food Security Bill are good, it has clearly not
been thought through
by the people pushing the bill and will become another major
drain on the
exchequer of the nation. Instead of dolling out freebies to
the people, the
Government should come up with long term measures that will
genuinely bring
people out of poverty and make them more prosperous, rather
than engaging in
measures that are costly, short-term and can have a backlash
which we cannot
even envisage. Source QMF
·
*-
Source - Wikipedia
#- Source – Firstpost.
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