Hey Congressmen! Don’t give us the fish

                          There is a lot of brouhaha over food security bill in parliament. Congress is gung-ho about passing it as it can have a positive impact on voters as Loksabha elections are coming nearer. Lokpal Bill is still in motion from many decades but yet to be passed but this food security bill seems to be the fastest bill passed on this country. The haste of this party in making this food bill a reality has been questioned many times by opposition parties but the party in power is in no mood of leaving any stone unturned. It could be a game changer for political parties but I suspect the change it can bring into the lives of the poor of this country. This bill is expected to benefit 82 crore people of this country but I fear the real beneficiaries from this bill would be few people who are either part of this party or involved in the distribution system in some way or other.

                  Similar to this scheme, there is already a scheme which is already in existence, which distributes a major amount of food grains, sugar and kerosene oil through so called ‘Fair Price Shop’ and we all are aware who the real beneficiaries here are. Though everyone with a ration card is allowed to be benefitted from that only few of us bother to go there and get the benefit. Let me tell you why, because the quality which is provided is non-edible. Is this the quality which the person in the top wants us to have or is it being replaced somewhere between the long system of distribution.

                 Ask me, how much I want to have Manmohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi taste this food, taste the rice and let the poor taste the food provided in the parliament canteen.

                   Besides that, the reason why I don’t want this food bill to be passed because whenever I imagine the scene of getting this cheap food distributed in my village I think of a alcoholic man, who will gamble sitting in the village shop rather than involved in some productive work, who can buy as much as food as he needs with just 2 days wage. This is not the story of my village alone but I know there are persons of this kind in almost every villages.  Some of you might ask me ‘what is my problem if he gets enough food’? the problem is I believe in a philosophy where I want able-bodied people to get only what they have earned through their work, their contribution in the production and only that much part of the same which they can return to the society. Though this might sound vague to some, but this is my personal opinion.

                Economically, I must say macro-economically, speaking, this food bill is going to have far-reaching consequences to already gloomy economic situation. The amount which will be spend on this could have been used on improving infrastructural facilities in far –flung areas which will impact positively in long term.

                     I don’t understand, what is the need of feeding every people, just like a critical patient is fed in hospitals by their relatives. Everybody is not patient here. Even the poorest of poor can buy his whole family enough food with the wages he will get from employment guarantee scheme.

•          Need is to have the proper implementation of policies which are already in existence.
•          Need is to provide the farmers the equipments and training facilities which will improve their productivity
•          Need is to have transparency in the system so that only those person get benefitted who are meant to.

       AND MOST OF ALL – NEED IS TO TEACH THEM HOW TO FISH RATHER THAN GIVING THEM THE FISH.