1)Measures to check price rise and hoarding :-
Background :-Recently, due to black marketing and hoarding price of certain commodities have sky-rocketed.Usually hoarding was thought of as a localized phenomenon , however , recent trends indicate towards an organized hoarding.In the recent event of Chennai Floods, people have witnessed day-light robbery in the form of exorbitant price of certain commodities.Hoarders are exploiting the situations such as calamities and deficient monsoon to benefit themselves. The worrisome fact is that , the benefits are not reaching the farmers , instead it is the middle man who is getting all the benefits.In light of this , Central and state governments have taken certain measures to whiplash the hoarders.
Legal Instruments :-
- Essential Commodities Act, 1955
- Prevention of Black-marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act, 1980
Policy Interventions:-
- Price Stabilization Fund is being implemented to regulate price volatility of agricultural commodities.
- Higher MSP has been announced so as to incentivize production and thereby enhance availability of food items which may help moderate prices
2)Panchi :-Wheeled version of UAV Nishant
A product improvement project-Panchi (Wheeled version of Nishant), catering to the Army requirement of conventional take-off and landing has been undertaken. The project is in an advanced stage of development. Panchi could be utilized by Army for their tactical UAV requirements.
3)National De-Worming Programme :-
The expected goal is to maintain coverage of more than 75% of school children with Albendazole, till Soil Transmitted Helminths (STH) ceases to become public health problem.
The de-worming program is accompanied by awareness generation activities, like Information, Education and Communication (IEC) strategies focusing on sanitation, hygiene and use of clean drinking water etc., besides administration of deworming drug.
4) ASPIRE -A Scheme for Promotion of Innovation, Rural Industry and Entrepreneurship :-
- Aspire Scheme Launched to Promote Rural Entrepreneurship
- The planned outcomes of ASPIRE are setting up Technology Business Incubators (TBI), Livelihood Business Incubators (LBI) and creation of a Fund of Funds for such initiatives with SIDBI.
5) SFURTI– Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries:-
- The objectives SFURTI is to organize the traditional industries and artisans into clusters to make them competitive and provide support for their long-term sustainability by way of enhancing the marketability of products, improving the skills of artisans, making provision for common facilities and strengthening the cluster governance systems.
6) Schemes related to Minority Affairs:-
- Seekho aur Kamao (Learn and Earn) – placement linked skill development scheme for minorities aims to upgrade various modern/traditional skills of minority youth enabling self-employment.
- USTTAD (Upgrading the Skills and Training in Traditional Arts/ Crafts for Development)–to preserve rich heritage of traditional arts/crafts of the minorities. It aims at capacity building and updating the traditional skills of master craftsmen/artisans; documentation of identified traditional arts/crafts of minorities; set standards for traditional skills; training minority youths in identified traditional arts/crafts through master craftsmen; and develop national and international market linkages.
- Nai Manzil :-An integrated education and livelihood initiative launched for school dropouts and Madarsa students
- MANAS – Maulana Azad National Academy for Skills – addresses all skill development needs of minority communities. It provides an all India Training framework with leading training partners in PPP Mode.
- Nai Roshni :-for Leadership Development of Minority Women with an aim to empower and instill confidence in women by providing knowledge, tools and techniques for interacting with Government systems, banks and intermediaries at all levels.
- Hamari Dharohar – to preserve the rich heritage of minority communities of India
7)SC backs appointment of priests as per Agamas :-
Reiterating that the fundamental right to freedom of religion is not confined to doctrines and beliefs but extends to “essential practices” done in pursuance of that faith, the Supreme Court held that appointment of archakas (priests) in Tamil Nadu temples as per the restrictions prescribed by the age-old Agamas (treatises) is not a violation of the right to equality.
SC invoked Article 16(5) of the Constitution to hold that “exclusion of some and inclusion of a particular segment or denomination for appointment as archakas would not violate Article 14 [right to equality]
Under Article 16 (5), the fundamental right to equality of opportunity will not affect a law mandating that an office-bearer of a religious or denominational institution should belong exclusively to a particular religion or denomination.
The judgment strikes a balance by not exactly striking down the Tamil Nadu government order of May 23, 2006, which allowed any qualified and trained Hindu to be appointed as priest in Hindu temples in the State.
Reasoning behind the judgement :-
- In the context of the Constitution Bench judgment of 1972 in the Seshammal case, the Supreme Court explained that Agamas were the “fundamental religious belief” of a particular sect.
- To justify this reasoning, the Bench referred to a century-old ruling of the Madras High Court in the Gopala Moopanar case which explained that the exclusion prescribed in the Agamas was not on the basis of caste, birth or pedigree. The Moopanar case revealed how some Agamas even excluded Brahmins from the sanctum sanctorum and duties of performance of pujas
Analysis :-
It it is essentially a case of Right to equal opportunity (Article – 16 ) vs Right to equality ( Article-14) and also includes Abolition of untouchability (Article 17)
SC was judging whether any of these rights are violated by Agamas.
The SC holds that it does not violate article – 16 or article -14 as it is in the interest of particular religion or sect to not only hold a certain belief or faith but also should be able to practice it.In this case , Agamas are fundamental belief of certain sect and they should be allowed to practice according to the text of Agamas as long as it does not violate the constitutional norms.
For the case of untouchability (article – 17) , SC holds that the exclusion prescribed in Agamas are not on the basis of birth,caste of pedigree and hence question of violation of article -17 does not arise.
What are Agamas:-
- The Agamas (Sanskrit: आगम) are a collection of scriptures of several Hindu devotional schools. The term literally means tradition or “that which has come down”, and the Agama texts describe cosmology, epistemology, philosophical doctrines, precepts on meditation and practices, four kinds of yoga, mantras, temple construction, deity worship and ways to attain sixfold desires
- These canonical texts are in Sanskrit and in south Indian languages such as Tamil (written in Grantha script and Tamil script)
- The Agama texts of Hinduism present a diverse range of philosophies, ranging from theistic dualism to absolute monism
- The three main branches of Agama texts are those of Shaivism (Shiva), Vaishnavism (Vishnu), Shaktism (Devi) which is also known as Tantra
- The Agamas literary genre may also be found in Śramaṇic traditions (i.e.Buddhist, Jaina etc.). Bali Hindu tradition is officially called Agama Hindu Dharma in Indonesia.
Each Agama consists of four parts:-
Jnana pada – knowledge of reality and liberation
Yoga pada – physical and mental discipline
Kriya pada – rules for rituals, construction of temples , design principles for sculpting, carving
Charya pada – lays down rules of conduct, of worship
The Saiva Agamas are found in four main schools – Kapala, Kalamukha, Pashupata and Saiva ; The Agamas of Kashmiri Saivism is also called the Trika Shastra.
The Shakta Agamas are commonly known as Tantras,and they are imbued with reverence for the feminine, representing goddess as the focus and treating the female as equal and essential part of the cosmic existence.
The Vaishnava Agamas are found into two main schools – Pancharatra and Vaikhanasas
Note- It is not necessary to remember the all details about Agamas ( the essence is essential though), but it is our duty to provide a holistic view of it. The reason is simple – UPSC is running out of questions and is asking questions which are very dynamic or were in news. Hence while covering the polity part we also covered the culture part .We can not afford ignorance.
8)Arbitration and Reconciliation Amendment Bill, 2015
Background – Passed by Lok Sabha , it was a questions in the MAINS this year.
- The Bill seeks to make the arbitration process more investor-friendly, cost-effective and suitable for expeditious disposal of cases. It will also facilitate in making India a hub of international commercial arbitration.
- Important provisions in the bill:-
- The Bill seeks to impose a time limit of 12 months for arbitrators to decide on disputes. Parties can also choose to fast track their arbitration within 6 months.
- Courts will also be asked to decide disputed arbitral awards within a year.
- The Bill also includes provisions specifying and restricting the term ‘Public Policy of India’ on whose ground an arbitral award could be challenged.
- According to the Bill, an award would be construed as against the Public Policy of India if it is induced or affected by fraud or corruption, or is in contravention of the fundamental policy of Indian law or is in conflict with the most basic notions of morality or justice.
9)Few Facts of importance:-
- Afghanistan has become the 164th WTO member
- India’s biggest Wildlife Rescue Centre has been commissioned at Gorewada near Nagpur, Maharashtra. It has been named as Gorewada Zoo and Wildlife
- RK Mathur becomes Chief Information Commissioner
- Nuclear Power Plants in News:-
- Kudankulam- Tamilnadu
- Jaitapur-Maharastra
- Kovvada- Andhra Pradesh
- Mithi Virdi – Gujrat
- The Great Indian Bustard bird which is confined in six states — Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh ; is a critically endangered. Population of this species is estimated to be less than 300. The population of this species is declining due to alteration of important bustard habitats due to industrialisation, mining, intensive agricultural practices, etc
11)Evidence of Buddhist monastery found:-
- A treasure trove of historical evidence of immense heritage value has been by found by archaeologists at the Vommili village of Andhra Pradesh
- The objects retrieved from a trial excavation on the surface include a standing image of the Vajrayana deity ‘Heruka’, a terracotta elephant head, conical mud bowls, thumb and finger print designs on pots, polished black ware, dull chocolate-coloured slipware and herringbone patterns.
- Most of the Buddhist heritage sites found in the city and in Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam districts are located along the coast and had flourished between 3 century BC and 3 century AD. But this site is located in the hinterland, far from the coast, and it flourished for about a thousand years.
Vajrayāna:-
- Vajrayāna also known as Tantric Buddhism
- The period of Indian Vajrayāna Buddhism has been classified as the fifth or final period of Buddhism in India. Vajrayāna literature does not appear in the Pāli Canon and the Agamas.
- The distinctive feature of Vajrayana Buddhism is ritual, which is used as a substitute or alternative for the earlier abstract meditations.
Questions of the Day (150-200 words)
1)Recently Many state in India are banning Alcohol. Do you think it is a well reasoned and well founded act of the government? What are the pros and cons of banning alcohol.
2)Do you think the ” odd even formula” of banning cars in Delhi is only symbolic? Can it really achieve what it aims to ? Do you think it is enforceable ?
Source – http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/be-afraid-disasters-are-waiting-to-happen/article8000856.ece
Read the technology segment to answer this
3)Do you think it is wise for India to pursue Nuclear power ?What are the risks involved in it ?
Source- http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/on-the-indiajapan-civil-nuclear-deal/article7996972.ece
Recent Posts
- Items provided through FPS
- The scale of rations
- The price of items distributed through FPS across states.
Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.
Heat wave is a condition of air temperature which becomes fatal to human body when exposed. Often times, it is defined based on the temperature thresholds over a region in terms of actual temperature or its departure from normal.
Heat wave is considered if maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 400C or more for Plains and at least 300C or more for Hilly regions.
a) Based on Departure from Normal
Heat Wave: Departure from normal is 4.50C to 6.40C
Severe Heat Wave: Departure from normal is >6.40C
b) Based on Actual Maximum Temperature
Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥ 450C
Severe Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥470C
If above criteria met at least in 2 stations in a Meteorological sub-division for at least two consecutive days and it declared on the second day
It is occurring mainly during March to June and in some rare cases even in July. The peak month of the heat wave over India is May.
Heat wave generally occurs over plains of northwest India, Central, East & north Peninsular India during March to June.
It covers Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, parts of Maharashtra & Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana.
Sometimes it occurs over Tamilnadu & Kerala also.
Heat waves adversely affect human and animal lives.
However, maximum temperatures more than 45°C observed mainly over Rajasthan and Vidarbha region in month of May.
a. Transportation / Prevalence of hot dry air over a region (There should be a region of warm dry air and appropriate flow pattern for transporting hot air over the region).
b. Absence of moisture in the upper atmosphere (As the presence of moisture restricts the temperature rise).
c. The sky should be practically cloudless (To allow maximum insulation over the region).
d. Large amplitude anti-cyclonic flow over the area.
Heat waves generally develop over Northwest India and spread gradually eastwards & southwards but not westwards (since the prevailing winds during the season are westerly to northwesterly).
The health impacts of Heat Waves typically involve dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke. The signs and symptoms are as follows:
1. Heat Cramps: Ederna (swelling) and Syncope (Fainting) generally accompanied by fever below 39*C i.e.102*F.
2. Heat Exhaustion: Fatigue, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps and sweating.
3. Heat Stoke: Body temperatures of 40*C i.e. 104*F or more along with delirium, seizures or coma. This is a potential fatal condition.
Norman Borlaug and MS Swaminathan in a wheat field in north India in March 1964
Political independence does not have much meaning without economic independence.
One of the important indicators of economic independence is self-sufficiency in food grain production.
The overall food grain scenario in India has undergone a drastic transformation in the last 75 years.
India was a food-deficit country on the eve of Independence. It had to import foodgrains to feed its people.
The situation became more acute during the 1960s. The imported food had to be sent to households within the shortest possible time.
The situation was referred to as ‘ship to mouth’.
Presently, Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns are overflowing with food grain stocks and the Union government is unable to ensure remunerative price to the farmers for their produce.
This transformation, however, was not smooth.
In the 1960s, it was disgraceful, but unavoidable for the Prime Minister of India to go to foreign countries with a begging bowl.
To avoid such situations, the government motivated agricultural scientists to make India self-sufficient in food grain production.
As a result, high-yield varieties (HYV) were developed. The combination of seeds, water and fertiliser gave a boost to food grain production in the country which is generally referred to as the Green Revolution.
The impact of the Green Revolution, however, was confined to a few areas like Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh in the north and (unified) Andhra Pradesh in the south.
Most of the remaining areas were deficit in food grain production.
Therefore the Union government had to procure food grain from surplus states to distribute it among deficit ones.
At the time, farmers in the surplus states viewed procurement as a tax as they were prevented from selling their surplus foodgrains at high prices in the deficit states.
As production of food grains increased, there was decentralisation of procurement. State governments were permitted to procure grain to meet their requirement.
The distribution of food grains was left to the concerned state governments.
Kerala, for instance, was totally a deficit state and had to adopt a distribution policy which was almost universal in nature.
Some states adopted a vigorous public distribution system (PDS) policy.
It is not out of place to narrate an interesting incident regarding food grain distribution in Andhra Pradesh. The Government of Andhra Pradesh in the early 1980s implemented a highly subsidised rice scheme under which poor households were given five kilograms of rice per person per month, subject to a ceiling of 25 kilograms at Rs 2 per kg. The state government required two million tonnes of rice to implement the scheme. But it received only on one million tonne from the Union government.
The state government had to purchase another million tonne of rice from rice millers in the state at a negotiated price, which was higher than the procurement price offered by the Centre, but lower than the open market price.
A large number of studies have revealed that many poor households have been excluded from the PDS network, while many undeserving households have managed to get benefits from it.
Various policy measures have been implemented to streamline PDS. A revamped PDS was introduced in 1992 to make food grain easily accessible to people in tribal and hilly areas, by providing relatively higher subsidies.
Targeted PDS was launched in 1997 to focus on households below the poverty line (BPL).
Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) was introduced to cover the poorest of the poor.
Annapoorna Scheme was introduced in 2001 to distribute 10 kg of food grains free of cost to destitutes above the age of 65 years.
In 2013, the National Food Security Act (NFSA) was passed by Parliament to expand and legalise the entitlement.
Conventionally, a card holder has to go to a particular fair price shop (FPS) and that particular shop has to be open when s/he visits it. Stock must be available in the shop. The card holder should also have sufficient time to stand in the queue to purchase his quota. The card holder has to put with rough treatment at the hands of a FPS dealer.
These problems do not exist once ration cards become smart cards. A card holder can go to any shop which is open and has available stocks. In short, the scheme has become card holder-friendly and curbed the monopoly power of the FPS dealer. Some states other than Chhattisgarh are also trying to introduce such a scheme on an experimental basis.
More recently, the Government of India has introduced a scheme called ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ which enables migrant labourers to purchase rations from the place where they reside. In August 2021, it was operational in 34 states and Union territories.
The intentions of the scheme are good but there are some hurdles in its implementation which need to be addressed. These problems arise on account of variation in:
It is not clear whether a migrant labourer gets items provided in his/her native state or those in the state s/he has migrated to and what prices will s/he be able to purchase them.
The Centre must learn lessons from the experiences of different countries in order to make PDS sustainable in the long-run.
For instance, Sri Lanka recently shifted to organic manure from chemical fertiliser without required planning. Consequently, it had to face an acute food shortage due to a shortage of organic manure.
Some analysts have cautioned against excessive dependence on chemical fertiliser.
Phosphorus is an important input in the production of chemical fertiliser and about 70-80 per cent of known resources of phosphorus are available only in Morocco.
There is possibility that Morocco may manipulate the price of phosphorus.
Providing excessive subsidies and unemployment relief may make people dependent, as in the case of Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
It is better to teach a person how to catch a fish rather than give free fish to him / her.
Hence, the government should give the right amount of subsidy to deserving people.
The government has to increase livestock as in the case of Uruguay to make the food basket broad-based and nutritious. It has to see to it that the organic content in the soil is adequate, in order to make cultivation environmentally-friendly and sustainable in the long-run.
In short, India has transformed from a food-deficit state to a food-surplus one 75 years after independence. However, the government must adopt environmental-friendly measures to sustain this achievement.