Launch hurdle for ‘anna bhagya’ plan
Even before the Siddaramaiah government’s ambitious Anna Bhagya Anna Bhagya scheme — which promises 10 kg of rice per head per month to BPL and Antyodaya card-holding families — could take off, it has run into a barrier. The Union government has directed the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to discontinue the sale of foodgrains to states, with some exceptions, under the Open Market Sale Scheme (Domestic). Instead, it has allowed FCI to offload rice and wheat stocks in the open market to private parties by e-auction, saying it would cool down prices and curb hoarding. The order comes a day after the Karnataka government reached a deal with the FCI to buy 2.28 lakh metric tonnes of rice at Rs 3,400 per quintal and throws a spanner in the works for the Anna Bhagya scheme, set to start on July 1. It also goes against the Centre’s OMSS policy for 2023, drawn up on January 26, allowing states to buy rice and wheat from the FCI without participating in the e-auction.
This has prompted Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to term the development anti-Kannadiga and anti-poor and claim that the Narendra Modi government is playing politics with the people’s food. India has the world’s largest food programme under the National Food Security Act, 2013, or the Right to Food Act, which subsidises grains for about 81 crore people. The Karnataka government is now working the phones with friendly states to make up for the deficit, and this struggle to find the monthly requirement of over 14,000 tonnes of rice at a cheap rate is likely to continue. It threatens to play havoc with Siddaramaiah’s budget and could even jeopardise the scheme and anger voters who anticipate an easing of their burdens.
The timing of the order leads to the suspicion that the Centre wants to make it clear who is in charge. Not that Karnataka wasn’t warned — during the assembly election campaign, BJP leaders had made it clear that voting against the party would deprive the state of Prime Minister Modi’s ‘blessings’. Instead of displaying a spirit of federal cooperation and compassion and ensuring that states prosper under popularly-elected leaders, the Centre is depriving the target population of this welfare measure. At a time when there is distress among the poor, especially those who are jobless, free grains are a godsend. The Centre cannot be at war with the states over something as basic as rice. The BJP government must realise that such moves smack of pettiness, and those living in Karnataka are also Indians, no matter which party they vote for.