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In the latest budget, the Modi government put food subsidies on the chopping block, with the poor suffering the blow from a massive 63% cut in foodgrain subsidy. Two months ago, the government also challenged the Supreme Court's directive to expand food security benefits to those in need. According to an estimate, at least 10 million Indians are currently being denied subsidised food because the number of eligible beneficiaries under the Food Security Act has been frozen based on an outdated 2011 Census.
Internal documents accessed by The Reporters Collective now shed light on the role of India's foremost policy advisor, Niti Aayog, in the government's efforts to cut food subsidies for the poor and stonewall apex court’s directive to increase food security coverage.
The documents reveal Niti Aayog has been the strongest opponent of expanding food security programmes, through which the government feeds millions of people rice and wheat. It has repeatedly sought to pare down and radically overhaul the public food distribution system. The government’s arguments in the court against expanding the food security programme align with the recommendations of Niti Aayog. It quoted some of the Aayog’s views in its affidavits submitted to the Supreme court.
The documents portray Niti Aayog’s hostility towards subsidies and its doubts about India’s ability to keep feeding its weakest minnows. Aayog recommended to the government to re-examine whether it is “feasible and desirable” to “continue providing cheaper food grains to nearly two-thirds of the population”.
Another tranche of documents show the Aayog also recommended bringing in the private and the corporate sector in the business of procuring grains and providing them to the poor under welfare schemes, which are now managed by the government. It undermines the purpose of the state-run Public Distribution System: shield the poor from fluctuating prices and ruthless corporations.
Niti Aayog also pushed to lower food security coverage in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. And it made these recommendations to draw down the food subsidy despite it being clear that the number of poor was surging and that when people have money problems, the first thing they stop buying is food.
Read the scoop by my colleague Shreegireesh Jalihal published in The Wire on how the government, under the influence of Niti Aayog, is significantly changing the food security of India's poor.