CPM opposes Shanta Kumar committee recommendations

Tribune News Service

Shimla, January 25

The Communist Party of India-Marxism (CPM) has opposed the recommendations of the Shanta Kumar Committee report charging that it was a blueprint to destroy India’s public distribution, procurement and storage system making way for handing it over to market forces.

In statement issued here, state secretariat member Tikender Panwar said these recommendations would destroy whatever little had been achieved in addressing the continuing problem of undernourishment among the population. It would hit farmers and also affect the interests of food deficit states, he claimed.

Panwar said, it was under pressure the UPA government brought the Food Security Act (FSA) which covered 67 per cent of the population.

But the Shanta committee seeks to slash this limit down to 40 per cent, the CPM claimed. Bringing down the amount of foodgrain to be distributed from over 60 million tonnes to below 40 million tonnes would make millions of people insecure, he added.

Panwar said the PDS price of even this reduced amount would be raised to 50 per cent. It is, according to the FSA, to be Rs 3 for a kg rice and Rs 2 for a kilo wheat, he added.

But it would be raised to 50 per cent of the minimum support price (MSP), which means that BPL sections would be deprived of lower prices and will have to pay double the amount, he charged.

This would mean the government would cut on the procurement throwing farmers at the mercy of big private agro-business companies and their middlemen, the CPM said.

The rise in foodgrain prices was linked to hoarding and speculation that could destroy the FCI and making a way to hand it over to private companies, Tikender claimed.