NewDelhi:The country will enjoy another bumper harvest in 2011-12, with an estimated 102 million tonnes of rice and 88 million tonnes of wheat projected as per the revised estimates of the Union government. But this could also create a problem of plenty for the government with the National Food Security Bill pending in Parliament, and the government unable to offload existing stocks to the states.

New Delhi: In an extraordinary effort at resolving policy disputes, the Union food ministry pleaded before the Supreme Court on Thursday to order the Planning Commission to release funds for reforms in the Public Distribution System (PDS) and to order the rural
development ministry to provide details of how many people in the category of poorest of poor had been left out of PDS.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday urged states and Union territories to hasten reforms in the public distribution system (PDS) for the effective implementation of the Food Security Bill.

Inaugurating a two-day conference of chief secretaries of states and Union territories, the prime minister said, “I would urge you to pay urgent attention to end-to-end computerisation of the PDS. We should be in a position to effectively implement the Food Security Bill by the time it becomes an Act of Parliament.”

In order to plug the pilferage of food items meant for distribution to people below the poverty line, the Supreme Court on Friday directed the Union food secretary to hasten the process of computerisation of entire PDS system.

A bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Dipak Misra set a deadline of two months to put in place the computerisation process for the PDS in entire country while asking the food secretary to take up the matter with each state and then submit a report.

Plans are afoot to include fodder under the scheme

Food security has been a long-pending demand of the people. To increase productivity, the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) has been established said, R.S. Malik, National Consultant (Agriculture Extension) of the NFSM, while visiting various fields in Ottapidaram block here on Tuesday. He interacted with the farmers and saw the benefits being availed from various government schemes.

Manufacturers and traders of food items have appealed to the State Government to urge the Centre to defer the implementation of the Food Safety and Standards Act 2011 (FSSA) for the next three years.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, the president of Tamil Nadu Foodgrains Merchants Association, S. P. Jeyapragasam, claimed that the FSSA would allow multinationals to open shop here, thereby affecting the small food manufacturers and traders.

The food security Bill will benefit multinational corporations and hurt genuine traders. The charter of the proposed National Food Security Bill (NFSB) is reminiscent of the socialistic era from the 1960s through the 1980s where the state decided how much a person needed and at what price that should be made available, irrespective of the cost of production. That model of nationalisation of grain trade collapsed with the demise of the Soviet Union.

The Centre’s National Food Security Bill could face some hitches, irrespective to which party forms government in Punjab as both the Congress and Akali Dal-BJP have promised to diversify agricultural production by moving towards cash or commercial crops. The poll promise by political parties to influence Punjab farmer to also grow crops other than wheat and paddy gives further weight to agriculture minister Sharad Pawar’s warning that implementation of food security law would be difficult unless agricultural productivity improves.

Members of the Tamil Nadu Traders Federation would stage a demonstration in the city on February 2 against the Food Safety and Standards Act. A decision to this effect was taken at an urgent consultative meeting of office bearers of the federation held here on Sunday, according to Ve.Govindarajalu, state general secretary of the federation.