The Right to Food

After the Right to Education, the government has a National Food Security Bill in the pipeline: simply put, it would make food a legal right of every citizen. I don’t have issues with the motive of it. Well, ok, let me add the qualifier: overall, I don’t have an issue with it…since it undoubtedly has a vote-gathering component to it as well. But let’s set that aside for a moment.

But first, the government should find a way to identify who is a citizen. In a country where “citizens” are imported from neighbouring countries to cast votes, why should my taxes be used to put food in some illegal Bangaladeshi immigrant’s mouth?

Next, do we have a food distribution system that can deliver? Does the government plan to fix the leaky godowns and clamp down on the hoarders and middlemen who siphon off the food today? "To use such a leaky bucket to carry a subsidy would mean the fiscal burden would be huge," says Kaushik Basu, chief economic advisor to the Ministry of Finance. I agree with Basu. Unless the government has any clear plans on how to support this new right, they’ve just cooked yet another vote gathering technique that will add to the misuse of our tax money.

To me, it sounds like (yet again) it’s the tax paying middle class that has to fund every hair-brained scheme and yet get abused as the section of society that “doesn’t care”…

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 19, 2011 at 5:26 PM

    Yes, I agree that all these schemes end up being populist and do little for the really needy.

    ReplyDelete

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