The ready-to-eat food market players such as ITC and MTR could get access to a much larger market if the proposed draft Food Security Bill, as cleared by the EGoM, has its way.

However, this move has been criticised by economists and activists, who point out that the Government is prioritising market expansion rather than protecting the interests of children, who form 40 per cent of the country’s population.

“The current legal guarantee of ‘hot cooked meals’ for children attending Anganwadis has been diluted by providing the option of ‘Ready to Eat Foods’ in this draft, which suggests that the Bill is more about creating markets and protecting corporate interests than the interests of children”, economist Prof Jean Dreze and food and health activists belonging to Right to Food Campaign and Jan Swasthya Abhiyan said in a statement on Monday.

The draft, as cleared by the Empowered Group of Ministers, pays scant regard to total food and nutrition for all children, they said, and termed this as a “grave injustice to people’s food security in general” as well as of children.

While the National Advisory Council draft had given due consideration to food entitlements for children, this one is a “pathetic attempt to pass off some expansion of the targeted public distribution system as a National Law,” they added.

Entitlements related to management of severe malnutrition, nutritional counselling and other programmatic issues requiring legal guarantees have also been wholly omitted. Accusing the Government of trying to minimise its responsibilities and avoid any accountability, they said it should instead see this as an opportunity to “fulfil children’s right to food and overcome the scourge of malnutrition, which has become a national shame”.

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