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With only 11 States and Union Territories (UTs) having fully or partially implemented the National Food Security Act (NFSA), the Centre stated on Wednesday that it will stop supplying subsidised foodgrains to Above Poverty Line (APL) families from April if the law is not operationalised in the remaining 25 States and UTs.
“If the rest do not implement the scheme by April 4, the Centre will not supply subsidised APL foodgrains to APL families who will have to buy them at the minimum support price,” said Ram Vilas Paswan, the Union Food Minister, after he met with the States’ Food Secretaries.
Some States, like Jharkhand and Odisha, had relayed their inability to meet the April deadline but had given an assurance to have the NFSA implemented by June and August respectively. Uttar Pradesh is likely to begin operations in 64 districts by March.
“We will look into on a case by case basis. If a State has genuine issues in implementing the Act then we will consider it,” said Paswan.
Improve infrastructure
The Centre also told States where the NFSA was underway to have infrastructure in place by February 15. Among the States to have partially implemented the scheme, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka had no system for doorstep delivery of rations while Aadhar coverage across some of them, like Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, were poor. Having a digitized list of beneficiaries was a challenge in many States including Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab.
“Some States have infrastructural shortcomings and have been told to finish the digitisation process by February otherwise only those beneficiaries identified by then will be covered. Once the entire list digitised, then the rest will benefit from the scheme,” said Sudhir Kumar, Food Secretary.
Kumar also stated that the process of identifying eligible households was entirely up to the States. “States have to notify criteria and if there is something amiss then it can be challenged. But the Centre has not provided any criteria,” he said.
The NFSA aims to provide legal entitlement to 5 kg of rice, wheat and coarse grains at Rs. 3/kg, Rs. 2/kg and Rs. 1/kg respectively per person each month and cover two-thirds of the population. States were given a year to identify beneficiaries and the April deadline marks a second extension since the scheme came into force last July.
Edible oils
Paswan also informed reporters that the Agriculture Ministry had moved a Cabinet proposal to raise import duty on edible oil from 10 per cent to 12.5 per cent for refined variants and from 2.5 per cent to 5 per cent for crude edible oils. The Food Ministry, he said, had recommended a hike up to 15 per cent for refined edible oils.
In the 2013-14 marketing year, India imported a record 11.82 million tonnes due to a spike in domestic demand.
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