The new formula for the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA) arrived at by a meeting of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) on Wednesday has attracted the criticism of activists of the Right to Food Campaign, who say it is full of ambiguities and leaves many issues wide open.
They feel NAC should have set a time frame for universalisation of the public distribution system. While the council specified that uniform and universal entitlements for BPL and APL families in the poorest blocks would roll out from next year, its silence on when a differentiated policy would be implemented in the rest of the country has been questioned by activists.
Activists also demanded to know whether the “socially vulnerable” groups proposed by the NAC would replace the existing BPL and APL differentiation for welfare entitlements.
The other things it has criticised the NAC is its silence on the price at which foodgrains would be sold to the non-vulnerable groups, expressing apprehension that this ambiguity may result in higher prices for the other categories. “This would convert the exercise of universalisation into a farce,” the Right to Food Campaign said.
The campaign announced plans for a convention at Rourkela in August, where people would be mobilised to demand a comprehensive food security act.