Nitin Sethi, TNN, Nov 28, 2010, 12.49am IST
NEW DELHI: The setting up of `fiscal-inspectors' by the PMO in the form of the Rangarajan Committee to review the Sonia-Gandhi led National Advisory Council's (NAC) draft of the National Food Security Act could now open up the debate on the basic contours of the social security scheme for the third time in six months.
NAC was informed on Friday that the PMO had set up a group under the PMO's chief economic adviser C Rangarajan to review the draft, which the Council is preparing in consultation with law experts within the government.
The committee is loaded with advocates of fiscal prudence, who have shared their views about keeping the weight of the subsidy emerging out of NFSA as low as possible and shifting to a conditional cash transfer mode instead of revamping the existing subsidised grain distribution system.
Twice earlier, NAC members were made to take a step back from their ambitious plans about the Bill. Both the Planning Commission and PMO intervened, forcing the Council to limit the ambit of food security net.
Initially, the key members of NAC were inclined towards a near-universal spread of subsidised grains with large chunks of the needy population being included, based on their social conditions or subscription to identified vulnerable sections of the society.
NAC, in its early stages of deliberations, seemed disinclined to allow the Centre to impose an artificial cut-off on the number of beneficiaries based on statistical estimates such as the Tendulkar Committee's figures. It retracted from that extreme position to start looking at a mix of automatic inclusion for beneficiaries and some imposed ceiling.
Later, it came up with the idea of a phased rollout of the food security net with at least one-foruth of districts or blocks across the country getting the subsidised grains in the first phase.
Embarrassingly for NAC, this formula, too, was withdrawn even after it had been made public. In October, NAC pruned its plans further upon insistence from PMO and decided that 48% rural and 28% urban population would get 35 kg of foodgrains on a monthly basis. Rice will be given at Rs 3 per kg, wheat at Rs 2 per kg and millets at Re 1 per kg.
At the same meeting, it was decided that NAC would draft the Bill along with legal experts and present it to the government. The drafting committee, sources said, is considering how to make benefits mandatory for SCs/STs despite these constraints. It is likely to submit the final draft to the Council.
But the superimposed `fiscal inspectors' of the PMO, which includes MontekSingh Ahluwalia and Kaushik Basu, would now be able to go through the NAC draft with a fine comb and measure its additional subsidy impact and recommend changes that would keep it within limits that the PMO prefers.
NAC was informed on Friday that the PMO had set up a group under the PMO's chief economic adviser C Rangarajan to review the draft, which the Council is preparing in consultation with law experts within the government.
The committee is loaded with advocates of fiscal prudence, who have shared their views about keeping the weight of the subsidy emerging out of NFSA as low as possible and shifting to a conditional cash transfer mode instead of revamping the existing subsidised grain distribution system.
Twice earlier, NAC members were made to take a step back from their ambitious plans about the Bill. Both the Planning Commission and PMO intervened, forcing the Council to limit the ambit of food security net.
Initially, the key members of NAC were inclined towards a near-universal spread of subsidised grains with large chunks of the needy population being included, based on their social conditions or subscription to identified vulnerable sections of the society.
NAC, in its early stages of deliberations, seemed disinclined to allow the Centre to impose an artificial cut-off on the number of beneficiaries based on statistical estimates such as the Tendulkar Committee's figures. It retracted from that extreme position to start looking at a mix of automatic inclusion for beneficiaries and some imposed ceiling.
Later, it came up with the idea of a phased rollout of the food security net with at least one-foruth of districts or blocks across the country getting the subsidised grains in the first phase.
Embarrassingly for NAC, this formula, too, was withdrawn even after it had been made public. In October, NAC pruned its plans further upon insistence from PMO and decided that 48% rural and 28% urban population would get 35 kg of foodgrains on a monthly basis. Rice will be given at Rs 3 per kg, wheat at Rs 2 per kg and millets at Re 1 per kg.
At the same meeting, it was decided that NAC would draft the Bill along with legal experts and present it to the government. The drafting committee, sources said, is considering how to make benefits mandatory for SCs/STs despite these constraints. It is likely to submit the final draft to the Council.
But the superimposed `fiscal inspectors' of the PMO, which includes MontekSingh Ahluwalia and Kaushik Basu, would now be able to go through the NAC draft with a fine comb and measure its additional subsidy impact and recommend changes that would keep it within limits that the PMO prefers.
