NEW DELHI: Hardly any bill has seen as many changes as the food security legislation, metamorphosing from a bare bones law delivering a minimum of wheat and rice to a mega-scheme incorporating a host of welfare programmes.
Soon after UPA-2 returned to power, the first draft of the proposed food security law envisaged 25 kg or rice or wheat to below poverty line beneficiaries and little else.
The model was seen to be financially wise and intended to benefit those who hovered on the poverty line and who might need the protection of a special law that enshrined food security as a legal right.
Things changed fast with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi writing to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that "vulnerable sections of society" are not left out of the proposed bill's ambit.
The intervention set the cat among the pigeons in the Prime Minister's Office as Sonia's move was correctly read as a rather direct hint that the government should consider the omnibus law proposed by the National Advisory Council she headed.
The law being pushed by NAC aimed at including various "at risk" sections such as destitutes or HIV affected persons and sought the inclusion of schemes run under the Integrated Child Development Services.
At one stroke, the compass of the Food Security Bill expanded from being targeted at the BPL segment to several sections, some covered, others not, by several central and state programmes.
The pressure mounted by right to food activists then added to the government's concerns as influential academics wrote in favour of universal or 100% food security coverage.
The bureaucracy - inclined to view some of these suggestions as faddist - pushed back and a resulting to-and-fro saw the bill almost literally go around in circles.
Wary of the implications of an act that might end up setting impossible standards, PMO wrestled to try and keep the finances, logistics and coverage in check and succeeded only partially.
The argument that it would be a poor decision to subject a leaky public distribution system a sudden surge in foodgrains was economically sound, but the politics of the bill, with their powerful backer, were not easy to resist.
Finally, PMO settled on a 67% coverage (first reported in TOI on July 4, 2011) but failed in its attempts to keep the quantum and rates flexible. Now any change in rates or quantity will need an amendment.
The Centre's fears were that procurement of the total production of wheat and rice can go up to 50% in the future with buffer stock requirements. There might be a situation where foodgrains required to be procured comes to about 80 million tonnes.
Such a demand can put immense pressure on retail prices and is certain to drive almost all private trade from the agriculture market for foodgrains.
The standing committee on food also examined the law and agreed with the government on some aspects like hiving the Antyodaya component or not including the scheme providing for pregnant and lactating mothers. This could be done by the states, it was felt.
Such was Sonia's strong conviction on the populist law that all these propositions were brought back into the bill.
