DEMAND THE RIGHT TO FOOD

DELHI CHALO
Do you know
that eight out of every ten babies born in rural India is underweight?
that six out of every ten women in our villages is anaemic?
that India has the largest number of malnourished and undernourished people in the
world?
Why is this so? Is it because India lacks enough foodgrains or enough resources to ensure
that our people are not malnourished or hungry? Not at all. On the contrary, India
produces enough foodgrains to feed its people.
As on May 1, 2012 there is a huge stock of 7.7 crore tonnes of wheat and rice in
Government godowns. For the whole year the present public distribution system requires
around 5 crore tonnes of foodgrains at the present level of distribution. Therefore it is
more than clear that if the Government wants it can increase the foodgrain allocation and
cover a much larger section of the people, making the public distribution system
universal.
But this Government prefers to let the foodgrains rot and be eaten by rats. It prefers to
spend huge amounts of money to store the grain helping private godown owners. It
prefers to export the grains helping big traders make a profit and feed foreign cattle, but it
refuses to accept the right to food of all Indians.
It insists on keeping the bogus BPL/APL categories which divides Indias poor and
deprived into two categories. Only a BPL card holder can get foodgrains in the ration
shop at cheaper prices. Everyone knows that the rich in India do not require subsidized
foodgrains. But the Government deprives the people of India of the right to food by using
fraudulent methods to define who is poor and who is not poor and how many are the poor
in each State. It informed the Supreme Court that anyone earning more than 26 rupees a
day in rural India and 32 a day in urban India ( at 2010-11 prices) cannot be considered
poor and therefore cannot get foodgrains at subsidised rates. As a result large sections of
our people are at the mercy of the high prices in the market. The bogus poverty estimates
have meant for example that
61 per cent of scheduled castes
55 per cent of scheduled tribes
52 per cent of agricultural workers
do not have BPL or Antodaya cards.

At present Governments in 8 States have tried to bring some relief to the people of those
States by expanding the BPL list and bringing down the price to one or two rupees per kg
for rice, or in some States for wheat, paying from their own resources. However since the
Central Government has refused to increase the foodgrain quotas to these States, the
maximum foodgrain available per family in States like Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu is
only 20 kg instead of 35 kgs. Thus the majority of families have to buy the rest of their
requirement of rice or wheat, even in these States at market prices.
In a country where a vast majority of people are in the unorganized sector with no fixed
income and no protection against the relentless increase in prices of essential
commodities, when it is estimated by the Governments own Commission on the
unorganized sector that 77 per cent of the population have an expenditure level of less
than twenty rupees a day, it is clear that any division in the name of BPL and APL, in
other words any targeted system is an unjustified anti-people policy.
But the Central Government is bringing a new law which will legalise this division of the
poor into the APL/BPL categories, under new names like general category for APL and
priority category for BPL. This Bill abolishes the Antodaya category. Both Antodaya and
BPL card holders will have to pay three rupees a kg for rice and two rupees for wheat.
But out of every 100 families in rural India, 54 will be automatically excluded from this
BPL list. Out of every 100 families in urban India, 72 will be automatically excluded.
Thus if this Bill is passed, a large majority of our people will be legally excluded from
the right to cheap, subsidised foodgrains.
This so-called Food Security Bill, which legalizes injustice, must be changed
If all families are given a right to cheap foodgrains of at least 35 kgs per family at two
rupees a kilo, the Government will have to increase its present food budget by only
around 30,000 to 40,000 crore rupees a year. The Government says it does not have the
money for this. But in this year alone the Government has given tax concessions of
various kinds to the wealthy and better off sections of society amounting to 5 lakh crore
rupees.
It does not mind giving up its revenue to help the rich, but it has no money for the poor.
Shame on this Government.
It is to protest against this and for alternative pro-people food policies and a Food
Security Bill based on a universal PDS that the Left parties are organising a nationwide
campaign for the right to food. This will culminate in a sit-in protest from July 30 to
August 3 in Delhi.
The central demands are :
No BPL or APLWe demand a universal public distribution system

We demand 35 kg of foodgrains at a maximum rate of two rupees a kilo per family per
month.
Scrap the Planning Commissions highly dubious poverty estimates. Do not use them as
basis for allocations for welfare rights
Implement Swaminathan Commission recommendations for a fair procurement price and
profit margin to farmers.
Join Us in this Campaign and Struggle.