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'Food security ordinance will affect 1.7 pc of GDP'
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SME Times News Bureau | 20 Jul, 2013
Food security ordinance, which will benefit 82 crore Indians, will affect 1.7 percent of India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Industries and Commerce Minister of Haryana, Randeep Singh Surjewala Friday said.
"Some economists in the country have been giving figures that 3.8
percent of the GDP will be eaten away by this scheme. I want to
respectfully tell them that they are wrong. Even if you take the entire
expenditure of the scheme, it comes to about 1.7 percent of GDP,"
Surjewala told journalists here in Meghalaya.
However, there were
others who said the fiscal impact of the United Progressive Alliance
government's flagship social welfare scheme will not exceed 0.1 to 0.15
percent of GDP in 2013-2014, most of which has been factored into the
budget.
The Congress leader, who was in the Meghalaya capital to
explain the ordinance as part of a Congress campaign, said that at
current prices, the existing food subsidy bill of the centre is about
Rs.1.3 lakh crore.
"So you are only adding about Rs.22,000 crore
and taking the security net from 6.5 crore families to 82 crore Indians.
I think it is a valid price to pay," he said
Stating that the
ordinance was "not a welfare measure", but a "statutory right",
Surjewala said that the entire bill will be footed by the centre and
there will be no burden passed on to the state governments.
"This
life-changing and often life-giving piece of legislation has risen from
a deep-rooted commitment to the cause of the poor, women and children
as also an unfathomable quest to hit at and eradicate hunger and
poverty," he said.
The ordinance, which will have to be
implemented by all state governments within 180 days from July 5, seeks
to provide 5 kg of subsidised food grains per person per month to 82
crore Indians at a cumulative cost of Rs.1,24,747 crore by supplying
72.6 million tonnes of food grains annually.
"If state
governments fail to implement the scheme within the stipulated 180 days,
then the beneficiaries have every right to claim the food security
allowance," he said.
Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi, who recently
met all chief ministers of Congress-ruled states, wanted that the UPA's
national food security ordinance be rolled out in all Congress-ruled
states Aug 20, the birthday of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The
right to food scheme is aimed at being a "game changer", ahead of the
five assembly polls this year and the 2014 general elections.
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