July 21, 2020
The Central Govt admitted that it did not have any data on migrant workers, but informed that 80 million workers who don’t have ration cards will receive free pulses and good grains and has order state govt to do so.
The Centre had declared that it will extend the timeline of distributing food grains under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (ANBA) to migrant workers. Indian States now have time until 31st August 2020 to distribute the food grains they have already lifted from the FCI.
In May during lockdown, FM Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that under the scheme, 80 million migrant workers who do not have ration cards will be provided with 5kgs of food grain (wheat or rice) and 1 kg of pulses (channa) per month during the month of May and June. A total of 8 lakh metric tons (LMT) of food grains and 38,000 metric tons (MT) of pulses were to be distributed by the end of June.
Nevertheless, according to the Centre’s admission, the scheme hasn’t quite well performed as pledged as ‘the identification process of genuine beneficiaries took some time’.
Factually, only 2.32 LMT of food grains, or 29% of the 8 LMT that was supposed to be distributed, has actually been distributed by states as on July 9, that is almost 10 days after the period (June end) in which they were to be distributed ended. States were only able to provide food grains to 22.4 million migrant workers for May and 22.5 million for June, well short of the 80 million target. States have lifted 6.39 LMT of food grains from the Food Corporation of India (FCI).
Around 10,645 MT of the 38,000 MT of pulses were to be distributed in May and June have been already been disseminated, while almost 33,000 MT was lifted from FCI.
The Centre has emphasized said that the food grains and pulses that that has been leftover should be distributed by August 31st . “Distribution period of the balance of already lifted 6.39 LMT food grains with the states/UTs has been extended till 31st August 2020,” the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution (MCAFPD) said in a press release.
It is important to note that on 30th June 2020, when PM Modi extended until November the provision of food grains to 800 million National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries that did not include the extension of the ANBA.
The major problem with the ANBA is identifying the actual beneficiaries, as the Centre has now admitted. Sitharaman said in May that the scheme will cover 80 million migrant workers without giving any clarification how that figure was arrived at.
No clarity on how figure was arrived
The clarification came on July 2 via an MCAFPD press release. It said, “Since, no data on actual/estimated number of migrants/stranded migrants across the country was available with the DoFPD, a liberal figure of 8 crore [80 million] migrant persons (10% of total 80 crore [800 million] NFSA population) was estimated.”
Thus, the Centre stated that at the time the scheme was envisaged, it did not had any fixed data on actual or estimated number of migrant workers in the country. Therefore, it decided to calculate 10% of the population covered by the NFSA (800 million) and arrived at the ‘liberal figure’ of 80 million migrant workers who were to benefit under ANBA and an allocation of 8 LMT of food grains to be made for May and June end.
A senior official at the ministry said, “It might not be the best method to calculate the number of migrant workers. But what could we do? We didn’t have the data. We needed to make the allocation of food grain. We needed a number. We only had bad options in the absence of real data.”
Perhaps by July 2, the Centre realized the mess it has got into as food grains had only been distributed to 12% of the ‘estimated’ 80 million migrant workers at the allotted time period
In the July 2 press release, it insisted that the initial 80 million figure was ‘liberal’. “The initial estimate of 8 crore persons was liberal and in response to the situation as projected in the media. In fact, the scale of the problem as got highlighted was such that it required [a] compassionate and generous response from the Government so that no one was left out,” the Centre said. But, in the absence of data, it is virtually impossible to ascertain how many were left out.
The Centre also hinted that it now believes that the 80 million figure may not have been the real number of migrant workers who needed assistance in May and June. “It needs to be understood that 8 crore [80 million] migrants should not be construed as the real target but an intended target to serve if it had existed. Moreover, it was always a dynamic number with the cross movement, reverse migration to home States/UT, and migration in transit,” the release said.
‘Confusion’
Nikhil Dey, co-founder of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan and who has worked extensively on food security, finds the method adopted by the Centre to arrive at the number of migrant workers perplexing. “I don’t understand. Why don’t they have statistics? And why were these food grains not delivered even after allocations were made? Even though you know that people are in need of food and you have excess stock, you are not delivering,” he said.
As Dey mentioned, there is no problem as far as availability of food grains is concerned. As per the July 9 press release of the MCAFPD, the FCI has a total of 812 LMT of food grains stocked in its food grains. This excludes food grains that have been procured but haven’t reached the godowns.
In fact, the stock of food grains currently held is almost double the buffer stock requirement as on July 1 and the highest stock maintained since 2005. This means India still has the largest stock of food grains with nothing to worry about.
States have lifted almost 80% of the food grains that had been allocated by the Centre for the ANBA. The final responsibility of distributing the food grains rests with the states. Still it remains ambiguous as to which states have failed to distribute food grains, to what extent and why? The data has not been made available for these queries which are a matter of concern as to who is responsible for the confusion!!!