Thought for
the day
“Without leaps of
imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming,
after all, is a form of planning.”
-
Gloria
Steinem (American, 1934-)
Word of the
day
Commix (v)
To mix together;
blend.
(Source: Dictionary.com)
Shri Nārada Uvāca
Is the Congress’s failure enough reason to vote for BJP?
What would be the shape of next government if BSP gets
38-40 seats?
Side effects of food security
Travelling from Delhi to Lucknow on NH24 a couple of weeks ago
we were stuck at Fatehganj (west) railway crossing for over 2hours. This is a
critical highway which connects national capital Delhi with state capital
Lucknow and important towns like Moradabad, Bareilly and Shahjahanpur. Most
traffic from the industrial towns in Uttrakhand Rudrapur, Kashipur and hill
station of Nainital also flows through this road via Rampur. The work on the
rail over bridge at the crossing was over 90% complete. But we did not see any
worker on the site. On enquiry we found that most workers have gone back to
their villages for festivals and would be back only by mid December after
sowing season is over. The site manager was a worried man. He cribbed that this
project like many others has faced delays due to this labor
indulgence, primarily a direct outcome of job guarantee under MNREGA.
While various opinions on MNREGA side effects are yet to be
substantiated by serious research, it is clear that it has led to – (a) changes
in historical labor migration pattern and (b) rise in average wage for
unskilled, agriculture and construction workers across country.
Prompted by the discussion with this particular site
manager, we attempted to make an assessment of likely socio-economic impact of
newly introduced food security during our recent trip across some north Indian
states. The key highlights of our findings are as follows:
(a)
A large majority of small and marginal farmers
in India engage in farming for sustenance purposes only – meaning they grow
cereal crops mostly for self consumption. A small part of the crop is sold to
pay for other necessities.
Once they are assured of sufficient cereal supplies at Rs1 or
2/kg, they would have little motivation to undertake farming activities. This
may result in short to midterm demand-supply inequilibrium for cereal crops.
The consequences could be inflation in cereal prices (not seen so far), and
short supply necessitating imports (watch CAD).
On positive side, many of these farmers may turn to cash crops,
thus improving their income levels. The rural women and children in particular
would have better opportunities to acquire better education and skills.
(b)
A part of child and women labor, especially in
household, farm, retail, and SME sectors could quit if they have food security.
In fact better enforcement of right to education (RTE) could significantly
enhance school enrollments and dropout rate may also decline.
The short term negative would be rise in cost for affected
sectors. However, the structural positive could be augmentation of skilled
workforce and improved quality of life indicators.
It would be interesting to
see how the next government plans the implementation of National Food Security
Act (NFSA). Failure in anticipating the likely demand-supply gap well in
advance would definitely make things complicated and unmanageable. The last week’s vegetable loot incidence of Malda, West
Bengal might become a trend and eventually culminate in food riots.
No comments:
Post a Comment