Food security bill: Is it right or fight to food?

NEW DELHI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi made a strong pitch for the food security bill in the Lok Sabha, hailing the legislation as a historic step as she spoke in Parliament on a proposed law for just the second time in nine years.

Participating in a debate in the lower house on Monday, Gandhi said it was time to send out a big message that India could take the responsibility of ensuring food security for all its citizens. She said the bill reflected the Congress-led UPA government’s rights-based approach and made a fervent appeal for its unanimous passage.

“Under the leadership of Dr Manmohan Singh, our UPA, in 2005, brought the right to information to bring transparency in public life, sometimes to our own disadvantage. Later, right to work was introduced. The MGNREGA has provided jobs to one in four rural households. In 2006, the path-breaking Forest Rights Act came into being...In 2008, the Right to Education came into being. We already see a sharp increase in enrolment. Food Security Bill is the fifth such legislation, what might be called our rightsbased approach,” Gandhi said in her 15-minute speech.


Without going into the specifics of the bill, or answering the opposition’s charges in detail, Gandhi appeared to acknowledge that the government did not have the means to implement the proposed law in its true spirit.

“Some people raise questions, do we have the means with us? It is not a question of means. We have to gather the means. It is not a question of whether we can or cannot do, we have to do it,” Gandhi said, underlining the government’s resolve to push through the legislation that the Congress sees as a major poll plank ahead of the 2014 general elections.

Speaking first in Hindi and then in English, Gandhi described the ambitious scheme to provide subsidised food to a large majority of the country’s population as part of an “empowerment revolution”.

Reaching out to the opposition, she said, “This legislation is only the beginning. We will be open to constructive suggestions, we will learn from experience, but we must put aside our differences and pass this bill unanimously.”

Gandhi noted that the farm sector and farmers were at the centre of the government’s policies, even as she acknowledged the shortcomings in the public distribution system (PDS). “The PDS needs reform. The leakage problem has to be addressed,” she said.