| Home > South-Asia >> India | |
Indian parliament passes food security bill, as Sonia Gandhi hospitalised
ABC Radio Australia - August 27, 2013
The flagship $US18 billion program was adopted by the lower house after a nine hour debate. The draft law will provide food grains to nearly 70 percent of the population, or 800 million people, for as little as one rupee per kilo.
Despite decades of fast economic growth, India still struggles to feed its population adequately, with more than 40 per cent of children malnourished, according to a survey published last year.
In a rare speech in parliament, Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi told MPs to send a message to the world that India was ready to eradicate malnutrition, which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as a "national shame".
"The big message which will go out to the country and rest of the world is clear and concrete: that India is taking the responsibility of providing food security of all its citizens," she said.
"Our goal for the foreseeable future must be to wipe out hunger and malnutrition from our country."
India already runs the world's biggest food distribution system, covering hundreds of millions of people, but the Food Security Bill will offer grains at lower prices and attempt to better target the needy.
The bill, as laid out in a government draft which was amended on Monday, was implemented through an executive decree in July, but needed to be passed in the national parliament to become permanent. It must now be debated and approved by the upper house before being signed into law by the president.
The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party attacked the government, saying the bill did not go far enough to cover more of the country's population, but ultimately voted in favour.
"We will support it today, but we wait for the day when we can enforce a better bill," Sushma Swaraj, leader of the opposition in the lower house, said.
Murli Manohar Joshi, a senior BJP leader, said the bill was an attempt by the Congress to grab votes ahead of next year's national elections, rather than end hunger. "This is not a food security bill, it is a vote security bill," he said.
The government says the programme will add 230 billion rupees ($US3.6 billion) annually to India's existing 900-billion-rupee food subsidy bill. The central bank has warned that the increased public spending could deepen the government's deficits and stoke already elevated inflation.
Opponents also argue that extra resources will be funnelled into the Public Distribution System which is notoriously corrupt.
Food minister K.V. Thomas had urged MPs to pass the bill, saying it would help plug holes and repair "damages and leakages in the central procurement system".
Sonia Gandhi ill
The president of India's ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, was hospitalised after falling ill during debate on the food bill.
Ms Gandhi was led limping out of the lower house in the early evening by her son and colleagues, then taken by car to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences hospital in New Delhi.
"Sonia has been admitted to AIIMS, her condition is stable," party spokesman Bhakta Charan Das said. He did not give more details.
It was not immediately clear what caused the turn six hours into the debate, with some media reports saying she had complained of chest pain. Other reports said she was suffering from a viral fever – a spokesman at the hospital could not be reached for comment.
The Italian-born politician, who has led the party to two successive terms governing the world's largest democracy, has played a slightly less public role in politics since being treated abroad for an unknown illness in 2011.
Ms Gandhi, 66, became Congress chief some years after the assassination in 1991 of her husband, the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
She declined to become prime minister despite pressure from the party after the first victory in 2004, and chose instead the quiet economist Manmohan Singh for the top job.
However, she arguably wields more power over government policy than Mr Singh from her post as Congress president, with party members and cabinet ministers grateful to her for reviving their fortunes with two uninterrupted terms in office.
Earlier on Monday, television images showed the normally strong-looking leader trembling as she read out from a clutch of papers a short speech on the food bill. (AFP/Reuters)
See also:
 |