All India Kisan Sabha condemns the Shanta Kumar Commission Recommendations and calls for summarily rejecting them. The “High Level Committee” set up by the Narendra Modi led BJP Government for “Restructuring the Food Corporation of India” has far exceeded its brief and made callous recommendations that will have an adverse and irreversible effect on food security of the people and livelihood security of the peasantry and agricultural worker.

The HLC Recommendations are a planned conspiracy to make India a Republic of Hunger in perpetuity. The BJP-led NDA Government is kowtowing to the diktats of the WTO as articulated by USA, European Union and the advanced capitalist countries. It is a continuation of the series of steps in this direction ranging from procurement ban and withdrawal of public stockholding if bonus over Minimum Support Prices (MSP) is paid, reducing the food grain buffer stocks and continued announcement of unremunerative and unfair MSP. These series of steps are the BJP-led NDA and Narendra Modi’s Republic Day gifts to the Obama Administration.  The steps are being taken even as the Government is putting up a facade of protecting India’s interests and the food security as well as livelihood security of the peasantry at WTO.

On Procurement and Related Matters

The HLC recommends that FCI should cease procurement operations of wheat, paddy and rice in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Punjab on the pretext that the States have sufficient experience and adequate infrastructure for procurement. It is well-known that States with effective procurement are aided by the FCI and its infrastructure. To stop FCI activity in these States will lead to handing over the procurement system to private players thus jeopardise the interests of the peasantry.  Rather what is necessary is further expansion of public procurement and scientific public stock-holding mechanism in the States mentioned above as well as across the country including the eastern belt. The Committee suggesting that Odisha has sufficient experience and adequate infrastructure for public procurement is a blatant lie and points to the Committee’s eagerness to facilitate profiteering of private trade cartels in all the food surplus states. Every harvest in Odisha and many other States are followed by protests for opening Procurement Centres and ensuring MSP. AIKS will join hand with all other peasant and agricultural organisations to resist this anti-peasant policy if Narendra Modi Government accepts this recommendation.

On Public Stock-Holding and Related Issues

The HLC recommends that the FCI should outsource its stocking operations to various agencies such as Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC), State Warehousing Corporation (SWC), Private Sector under Private Entrepreneur Guarantee (PEG) Scheme on a competitive bidding basis, inviting various stakeholders apparently for creating competition to bring down costs of storage. It will only pave way for private profiteering and effectively finish off the FCI which was the back-bone of India’s Food Security programme. This in effect is to keep out the Government agencies, Cooperatives and Panchayats and open the flood-gates for Private Monopolies and Speculators to take-over this sector.

On National Food Security Act (NFSA) and Public Distribution System (PDS)

The HLC recommends restructuring the National Food Security Act (NFSA) by drastically cutting its scope and coverage to just about 40 percent instead of the present 67 percent of the population. Around 32.4 Crore population will become deprived of the ration system if this recommendation is accepted.  BJP ruled States have taken the lead and gone ahead implementing this recommendation even before the HLC Recommendations were made public. In Maharashtra the new Government has in such a situation gone ahead with a drastic cut in food subsidy and discontinued the food subsidy of nearly 2 crore people in the State. The HLC also has draconian provisions like deferring the implementation of NFSA in States where that have not done “end-to-end” computerisation purportedly to curtail leakages in PDS. While the end-to-end computerisation recommended for the entire food management system starting from procurement from Farmers to stocking, movement and finally distribution through PDS in itself could help real time basis monitoring and curb leakages, the mechanism needed for such a huge exercise cannot be set up overnight. Instead of ensuring strict implementation of leakage free system, such a recommendation penalising the poor for the absence of computerisation is unacceptable.

Another recommendation that goes against the interests of the peasantry is deregulating the fertiliser sector and introduce cash subsidy to farmers to the tune of Rs 7000/Hector which is a meagre amount as per the existing cost calculation. Thus the HLC is playing in the hands of the private Fertiliser Companies to escalate the cost of production and thus pushing the peasantry in to further market exploitation.

The HLC recommendation to privatise the procurement system and introduce cash transfer system is not acceptable. This is sheer escape from the social obligation of ensuring food security by the Union Government and facilitates privatisation of Public Distribution System.

In a country where millions remain hungry and starvation as well as malnutrition deaths are rampant the HLC Recommendations coming after 65 years of the Republic also points to the utter insensitivity to the plight of the hungry.

The AIKS calls upon all units and all democratic sections to rise up and protest against the retrograde, anti-people and anti-national move of the BJP-led NDA Government.

Sd/-
Amra Ram, President
Hannan Mollah, General Secretary
January 26, 2015