Lower House Gives Nod to Food Security Bill

Anupam Nath/Associated Press Children eating food at a slum area in Guwahati, Assam, on July 4.

The landmark food security bill that guarantees a legal right to food to 70 percent of India’s 1.2 billion people was ratified by a majority vote in the lower house of the Indian Parliament, or Lok Sabha, on Monday night after a protracted debate between lawmakers.

A pet project of the governing Indian National Congress party that leads the United Progressive Alliance national coalition, the ambitious bill will cost the exchequer about 1.2 trillion rupees, or $20 billion annually.

The bill needs to be debated and passed in the upper house of the Parliament, or Rajya Sabha, and signed off by the president before becoming law.

In a rare speech in the lower house, the president of the Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, urged unanimous support for the bill from members of Parliament on Monday afternoon.

“The question is not whether we have enough resources or not and whether it would benefit the farmers or not,” Mrs. Gandhi said.

“We have to arrange resources for it. We have to do.”

The food subsidy program championed by Mrs. Gandhi fulfills a pledge made by the party during the 2009 national elections and is seen as an attempt to gain favor with rural voters ahead of the general elections in 2014.

It was only after hours of rancor and deliberations over amendments from the opposition parties that the bill was finally endorsed. Some lawmakers expressed dissatisfaction about the number of people who would benefit from the bill and loopholes within the public distribution system in India, the existing food subsidy program through which the provisions of the bill will be administered once it becomes a law.

“This bill is half baked, but we have still decided to support it,” said Sushma Swaraj, leader of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party in the Lok Sabha. She said that her party hoped to “make a better version of the bill” when it comes to power.

Her party colleague Murli Manohar Joshi, said on the floor of the house that, “It’s not food security, but a vote securing bill.”

Allies in the national coalition also challenged the Congress party on the timing of the legislation and dubbed it an election-driven measure.

“Why didn’t you bring this bill earlier when poor people were dying because of hunger?” said Mulayam Singh Yadav, chief of the Samajwadi Party in the lower house.

“This bill is neither for the poor, nor for the farmers,” Mr. Yadav said.

As the house was about to vote on the bill Monday night, Mrs. Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, both elected to the national legislature from separate constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, rushed out of the Parliament after Mrs. Gandhi complained of chest pain. She seemed to be losing her balance and had to be helped by a fellow Parliamentarian, as she walked toward her car under the gaze of television cameras. She was taken to a hospital for a medical examination and later released.

Read “The Food Security Debate”on India Ink by Jean Dreze for a comprehensive look at the what the bill entails and why it matters.