 You're watching NewsClick and I have with me one of the most well-known voices when it comes to food security in India and that is Dr. Ritika Khaira and we are actually going to talk about the Pradhan Mantri, Garib Kalyan Yojna which is likely to end pretty soon but who knows there are some news reports which suggest that it might be get extended. Professor Khaira, thank you so much for joining us. First of all let me ask you do you actually think that this is going to end or is it too much of a political golden egg to suddenly stop all of a sudden? So of course unfortunately I'm not a mind reader or not able to do a forecast of what the government will do especially of these governments which have a knack for doing unexpected things as far as the Pradhan Mantri, Garib Kalyan and Yojna is concerned which is the part of the Pradhan Mantri, Garib Kalyan Yojna that provides double rations to all those existing ration card holders of the public distribution system. You know since it started in 2020 the government has had a tendency to always only extend it on the last day or in fact sometimes announce the extension even a few days after the deadline has gone. This has actually caused some problems in the implementation we can come to that later on but the fact that it has the extension hasn't yet been announced is not particularly surprising to me though this time perhaps the circumstances are a little bit different from previous times because this year's procurement was a bit lower than anticipated in previous years but in spite of that actually the stocks situation is very comfortable so what has happened is that over since 2016 at least food stocks with the food corporation of India have been way higher than the buffer stock norms that the government has and this time even the lower stocks compared to previous years are actually still much higher than the buffer stock norms. If the government wants to continue this double provision it can do so without you know jeopardizing our food security situation and whatever norms we have had in spite of the fact that you know the output this year the production and procurement this year was somewhat lower than previous years. You know this is an interview that I'm doing in the English language and most people who watch such programs of course Musklick has a certain kind of viewer who is informed in a certain way but most others think that this is just free food this is only going to make the poor lazy 70 years why do we still have to give this this is you know there's a thing about free muftka our income tax money goes it's wasted all for wards now what do you have to say to those people why after seven decades to so many people and I was reading a note that you have written that even this 80 crore is actually less than what it should be right so why do why do even 80 crore people need very cheap food. Right so I think there are different things one can say about this question one important thing is that even though there has been exceptionally there have been phases of exceptionally good GDP growth over the past 70 years some were high and some were quite mediocre the fact is that the fruits of that growth have not been shared equally by the Indian population in the Indian population so people like you and me we have benefited tremendously from what has happened in the past three four decades but not we are not typical Indians so people like me have to actually stop eating to lose weight yes so we have the that problem at the top end of the distribution but I think the fact is that the diets of a large majority of Indians remain very poor many of them report having to skip meals every once in a while and especially since the pandemic you know this was even documented by a bunch of people who did surveys in different parts of the country so nutritional poverty is a very widespread phenomena that exists even if there was no pandemic the pandemic actually has made it a food security crisis also it's not just that you don't get good food to eat for many people you don't actually people were not getting adequate food to eat so in a nutshell the answer is that there is a lot of inequality and a lot of this inequality is actually hidden from people like you and me because you know the media is just not showing us you know when the news you know you should someone should do an analysis of what makes the headlines and actually you know it touches a very small segment of the population so the fact that we don't see it also is part of the problem the only time actually when mainstream media was focusing squarely on this issue was during the lockdown when we saw all these migrants stuck in urban centers I think that was the first time where there was like this collective awakening and social you know this consciousness of everyone was sort of shaken because they began to see what you know the conditions of Indians are really like and this was mainly focused on urban areas still right rural areas also have equal amount of distress so I think for all these reasons and because we have you know Orwell has said this that either we all live in a decent world or nobody does I think for that reason alone we should actually consider programs such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the Public Distribution System, the Midday Mealscape as actually the best use of taxpayer money. And of course income tax is just less than 25% in any case of what the government spent so yeah yeah it's the best you know one of the admissions one would have to say that when the government said that it's going to through this very undojna it effectively from through the back door admitted that 80 crore people are poor that they need help just to eat right we're still now we've never acknowledged what the poverty level actually is and you have actually calculated and you argue that that 80 crore number itself is in some way the data has been punched or misread could you just elaborate on that yeah so just backtracking a little bit see the 80 crore people who are getting subsidized ration from the government that didn't start with the Prabhan, Manthri, Garib, Kalyan and Naiojna that just that it has to be given at a much much more subsidized much the amount had to be increased that I just want to correct yeah yeah so I think people should know that the coverage of the public distribution system jumped to 80 crores as a result of the passage of the National Food Security Act in 2013 and between 2013 and 2016 all the states implemented the act so that we were in a situation where we had a system of social protection that was ready to be ramped up in the way that this government did during a crisis like the lockdown so I think that even the harshest critics of the PDS people like Surya Balai if I may mention his name were forced to admit that this was you know a life saver for the country at that time now but just to clarify again to the I'm just sorry to interrupt you there but just to clarify if you could explain that the Food Security Act which you know enabled 87% if I'm not wrong the percent of the population to be covered by PDS but within that there was a layering run a large number of people were considered to be able to pay a certain amount which itself was an issue right no no no hang on hang on no so the the NFSA the National Food Security Act it said that in rural areas we will cover a national average of 75% of the population in urban areas it will be 50% in poorer states like Jharkhand and Bihar the rural coverage went up to 90% in richer states like Punjab and Haryana the rural coverage was a bit lower national average was 75% under the NFSA the everyone was supposed to pay one two or three rupees per kg depending on which grain they got so if they got rice it's three rupees a kilo if it's wheat it's two rupees a kilo and if it's coarse grains like bajra or juar then it's one rupee okay some states said that look like Tamil Nadu they said we have been giving free rice forever we are not going to even charge that three rupees other states gave additional subsidies like Chhattisgarh and Oresal they were selling even rice at just one rupee so that was the situation until 2020 in 2020 what the government did the central government did they said we are going to instead of giving five kilos per person we'll give 10 kilos per person that doubling part we will give free of cost and meanwhile before because the central government didn't act fast enough some state governments they had already started announcing that you know even the NFSA portion the 5 kg the regular portion they had already made it free some of them so as a result of this lockdown and the Pradhan Mantri Gali Gahan and Nagyajna what happened is that people started getting 10 kilos per person per month and five kilos of it was free five kilos was still charged at the old prices of two or three rupees a kilo right now this has actually also created a lot of confusion in people's minds like a lot of them don't know that the double part is supposed to be free the dealer tells them so they managed to take them or yeah yeah so there are those kinds of issues that have arisen with the doubling and also because of the fact that it's been done in this haphazard way where it's not said okay this will continue for two years so that people have a chance to know what their entitlements are so at least in a few villages in Jharkhand we have seen how the doubling has actually not benefited everyone because the and it's a very convenient kind of arrangement what the dealers do is earlier they were giving four and a half kilos out of five now they've started giving five full kilos no cheating but because people don't know about the extra five kilos they siphon all of it off so the people are happy because they're now getting five kilos they don't realize that five kilos is the dealer is happy because he's getting five kilos bonus and the governments are happy because they're getting so much free publicity and goodwill that you know this in fact in many places it has reached I'm not saying that this is the story everywhere please bear that in mind this is from a few villages where we have seen this is happening in many parts of course people have got their double ration also I just just a digression just for our viewers and for me as well I just wanted to know given that people in rural India and poor people even in urban India have very little access to proteins or to you know facts what is the amount of rice or wheat that an average person should be eating in a month so this according to national sample survey data all India average consumption per capita per month used to be just under 10 kilos so basically right now the situation is that the 100% of a person's requirement is coming from this but for people like you and me I don't think we consume 10 kilos per person our consumption is much lower we get a lot of our calories from proteins and from fats that's right and also our lifestyles are so different that we don't need that even if we yeah yeah so that's one part of it the other thing is that if you look compare India with other countries including China which used to be really much poorer than us once upon a time in the 80s even actually or any other neighboring country the Indian diet is very poor and it is not diverse yeah so the diversity in our diet especially proteins especially animal proteins is very poor and for a very long time we have been saying that the PDS should look beyond wheat and rice and should consider just as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and perhaps even Kerala have done where you get edible oil and you get dal in fact in some some people in a place like Himachal Pradesh can get up to three types of dals at a very heavily subsidized price 30, 40, 50 rupees you know that range and in Tamil Nadu so all these states are making efforts to provide more nutritious items also through the PDS at the regulated price and also subsidized price in other states this kind of thing has happened sporadically I don't know if you remember once Sheila Dixit was in big trouble in Delhi over prices of dals and so they had started applying through suffle booths so yeah I remember so so that kind of thing I think should be a regular feature of the PDS especially in the poorer states you know nutritionally poor and just economically poorer states like Odessa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand that whole eastern belt but in fact the lack of protein is also a very serious issue in most parts of the country so this PDS to think of it only as a channel for dumping all the excess grain that's stocking up in an FCI I think we should look beyond that I would like to remind you that right at the beginning you had said that you think that there's a better way to use this excess stock that FCI has so why don't you just tell us that we continue actually yeah you had mentioned so see the National Food Security Act from which this 80 crore coverage figure is coming the number was basically 75% of the 2011 rural population and 50% of the 2011 urban population gave us something like 80 crores at that time but now we are in 2022 in 2021 we should have had another census which has not happened and because of that what has happened is that the numbers of coverage of the PDS have not been updated but we do have population projections from the census people and if we were to use the projected population of this year 2020 or 2021 then using the same coverage ratios that are specified in the National Food Security Act 75% and 50% you would actually get about 10 crore more people into the PDS and you know this would have been such a great thing to do at the time of the lockdown because what was happening at the time of the lockdown is that people didn't have PDS ration cards and that's why they were left high and dry right so doubling helps those who have a ration card but you you had huge numbers of people especially we saw the plight of the urban poor who didn't even have ration cards so they actually don't benefit from this Pradhan Mantri, Garib, Kalyan, Anayojna at all whereas they're seeing their neighbors who are lucky enough to have got a ration card getting twice as much grain the other thing that I feel we could be doing with these excess stocks is and again so on this issue of updating the population numbers the Supreme Court of India in August directed the government the central government to do this adaptation exercise and the hearing was supposed to happen in September the government was supposed to come back and answer why isn't it using projected population figures to increase the coverage of the PDS but so far I don't think any response has come or if it has I'm not aware of it the other thing in fact the Supreme Court has also highlighted and asked the government to do something about is the setting up of community kitchens these are actually a fantastic thing right so again if you may recall from the time of the lockdown Kerala was amongst the first movers they were giving packed food packages for people to pick up right in Tamil Nadu you have Ammas canteens in Karnataka there was this nasan thing called Indira canteens which actually didn't really take off in the end in Jharkhand and to some extent in Chhattisgarh also there are Dalbaat kindras where for five rupees you can get a plate of rice with dal and I think for an additional five rupees they give you a boiled egg also so this is actually not a bad meal for a lot of people you know if you get for 10 rupees one egg and some even if it's watery dal it's not a bad meal even Delhi had you know our government has started some kitchens which haven't really taken off that's right and in Maharashtra they had these Jhunkabhakar centres so a lot of states have made some fledgling efforts but there hasn't been a central scheme which says here is the allocation of grain why don't you set all these kitchens up you know community kitchens up at bus stands hospitals railway stations these are the places where a lot of the you know floating population people who come to the cities for illness and you know for their health needs etc and the supreme court in January I think reminded the government and gave them three months time or something like that saying why don't you set up these kitchens but again I think nothing has really moved on that so when we have this excess grain I think that you know one expanding the coverage of the pds so that the population base is updated just that much and the second is also to consider very seriously the setting up of community kitchens because they provide a lot of relief to people in distress so you know let me be the devil's advocate here and one of the arguments that some people make is that given that there is we are seeing the labour participation rate in India actually dropping further and there is there was an increase in you know number of people working in the farm sector since 2019 since the summer of 2019 it has increased there's been a reversal of trends since then some people say that this has to do with the fact that there is the PM Kisan Yojana everyone wants to go back and show a certificate to get that 6000 rupees and which is not very little given that you know if you look at some of the surveys like the NAFIS survey tells us that the bottom 30 percent of agricultural households have the have a cut off you know family income of some 3500 rupees so you get 6000 rupees a year and if you have two people in the family you can get that then you end up with a thousand rupees a month additional then you have a certain amount of free food coming in does that at all lead to a situation where people would want to work at all and I mean this in a sense that not that not because oh they're lazy but because when we think of aspiration to work if working means you're just about going to have a subsistence level of existence why would you work so what is the this focus on not nothing that has you know any employment no employment generation nothing which creates anything beyond food and subsistence survival that seems to be the problem with these policies right so again I could say many different things to that first I would like to say that why should we think that the aspirations of the average or the poor Indian are any different from say Mr. Adani who is the flavor of the month right so if he is not happy with his whatever I like the number is so big I don't even remember it and he is you know his aspirations are to actually reach further heights why do you think anyone you know a farmer working on her field is any different that's one thing the second is I think the tender there is a tendency to to perceive forms of social support as unproductive so you know one of the things that in 20 years that I've been hearing this because I started working on energy 20 years ago and at that time they said oh you should teach people how to fish not give them that old idea and actually you know the thing is that I see programs of social protection such as the energy or the PDS or other forms of cash support I see them as actually investments in people if a person is able to get employment in her village in his village it stops them from having to migrate or family to a city in search of work that means that the children can stay on in school for longer they don't have to drop out their studies don't suffer and that means we're investing in the future generation by allowing enabling their education to continue similarly if you provide food or cash support basically you're enabling people who are really living on the brink of subsistence to keep their nose above the water and to you know make investments in themselves because you know we are a labor surplus country and that is our strength if you have a enfeebled poorly nourished always falling sick poorly educated workforce where are you going to go you will have a reserve army to do a lot of cheap labor for you but that's not value added right then it's adding value for the rich people but if you really want to empower people then you have to ensure good health and good education and all of these programs of social support whether it is eggs in the school meal program or just simple grain from the pds or employment in your village through nrej all of these things together i think they do provide a sort of buffer for very poor people interestingly that those who now opposed it say that you know there's not enough entrepreneurship in the poor and you're making it even worse interestingly they should be reminded that industrialists right before we became independent actually wanted this such things to be done as part of their own scheme the bombay plan had several of these things which they thought should be done for the poor today we have a situation where the middle class feels that i mean it's on all these whatsapp groups i just want to end with one thing you know you were talking about ration cards the lack of ration cards not giving people enough access and this is an anecdote from my own experience i remember i there's a carpenter who does some work for us and during the lockdown he would call and say that can you give me some money because i don't have food so i would transfer some money to him and then one day he called me and said that i'm going to go i said that how will you go he said i'll walk i said why he said because so there there is that um desperation that people have they just don't get to eat and we sit here thinking that oh this is just free food yeah no and i think also the ration card is tied to all kinds of other schemes so when people who seem better off like maybe your carpenter is not he has skill right he has real honor so his earnings can potentially be quite high but even so he is interested in the ration card because it may give him access to other schemes of the government so it's a bit of a pack it's not like adha which is just a khokla card which doesn't entitle you to anything in itself it can disentitle you from your existing entitlements by not you know if you're not linked but the ration card is actually you know meaningful identity card and access to a range of government services and i think that's also why people are so interested in having access to it if it is possible for them. Ritika Khera thank you so much for joining us and i hope that the government is listening to you not this show i mean no one's going to be watching this show in the government i'm sure but i hope you've written a lot i hope they listen to you they read you i mean people like us do so hopefully you are going to be heard and this will be extended it's much needed thank you so much.