Bhubaneswar , 8/7 ( Odisha Samachar Bureau ) - Former Minister and senior Congress leader
Shri Niranjan Patnaik on Monday urged the State Government to implement the
Food Security Law with sincerity and support the Bill in the Parliament.
The President of India has accorded assent
to the Food Security Ordinance, 2013, which has now become a law of the land. But
for the past few months, the representatives of BJD government has been
claiming that there is nothing new in the Food Security Bill as the State
Government is already providing 25 kg of rice to the BPL families at Rs 1 per
Kg. “This is an absurd and politically motivated argument. The fact is the
state Government is not showing any seriousness and the sincerity to free
Odisha and our country from the scourge of hunger,” said Shri Niranjan Patnaik.
“The UPA Government has been trying to
create a regime of legal rights, and ever since the epoch-making laws including
RTI, MNREGA and Right to Education Act, the government has now come up with
another law that creates a legal right for the less privileged section over
food. Once the law is implemented, any authority responsible for allowing a
person to be hungry can be held accountable and even punished under section 41
of the Act. Earlier, issues related to food were looked upon as a matter of
charity, now it has become a legal right. If this is not new and revolutionary,
what is,” said Shri Patnaik.
As per the proposed law, there is a provision
of a District Grievance Officer under Section 21, which will have the exclusive
responsibility of looking into problems of hunger and will be empowered to take
action against any authority responsible for neglecting the hungry. At the state level there will be a State Food Commission
and at the centre, a Central Food Commission under Section 22 and 26 of the
Indian Constitution. The Commission will enjoy powers of a civil court and can
award punishment amounting to a fine of Rs 5000.
He further said, “I am sorry to find that
the State Government is claiming that they have already done everything and
nothing needs to be done at a time when Odisha is right at the bottom among
states in hunger and malnutrition indices. I request the Chief Minister to sincerely
implement the new law and hold any authority responsible for hunger
accountable. Let there be no politics over hungry stomachs. This is not about
politics.”.
Shri Patnaik said that the Central
Government is already implementing the Targeted Public Distribution System
(TPDS), which has now been incorporated in Section 3 of the law. One of the
major programs under TDPS is the Antodaya Anna Yojna, under which the Central
Government provides 35 Kgs of food grain to BPL families. For non-BPL families
15 to 35 Kgs of food grains are provided depending on demand and previous
lifting. The State Government has been providing 25 Kgs of rice in place of 35
Kgs provided by the Central Government, because they have not been able to
finalize the BPL list even after being in power for 14 years, he added.
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