Even if corrupt officials and politicians siphon off 20% of estimated Rs6.82 lakh crore of the likely expenditure of the Food Security Bill, they stand to gain Rs1.36 lakh crore in three years. What was the emergency that required an ordinance for this?

With each coming election, every political party revels in playing Santa Claus. With nothing to show by way of good governance, the only way to win elections is to dole out increasingly expensive gifts or promise grandiose welfare schemes. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won the 2009 election by promising a Rs52,000 crore loan waiver scheme (and which eventually cost Rs71,680 crore). With the economy in terrible shape and widespread disenchantment, the UPA has now announced, by way of an ordinance, the mother of all welfare schemes: Sonia Gandhi and her advisory commission’s brainchild of national food security. The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices of the Ministry of Agriculture has prepared a detailed “Discussion Paper 2” and page 33 gives an estimate of what this will cost the nation – hold your breath – Rs6.82 lakh crore over a three year period!

After failing to pass the Food Security Bill through Parliament, the Union Cabinet promulgated this Ordinance a few weeks before the monsoon session was to commence. This is a clear constitutional impropriety. The power to promulgate ordinances is vested with the President and Governors under Articles 123 and 213 of the Constitution and is based on similar powers that the Governor-General of India and the Governors of provinces had before independence. In a heated debate on 23 May 1949, several members of the Constituent Assembly expressed fears of a misuse of this power. Dr BR Abukir informed the members that this extraordinary power was necessary because the “framework for passing law in the ordinary process does not exist”. In the end, the members accepted that this extraordinary power was a necessary evil to be used in extraordinary situations and not perverted to serve political ends. As has happened several times in the past, our politicians have done exactly what the founding fathers did not expect them to do.

The National Food Security Ordinance, 2013 is a complex piece of legislation that has 44 sections and three schedules. Section 3 guarantees every person belonging to a “priority household” five kilogram of food grains per month at a subsidized price for the next three years. Households covered under the “Antyodaya Anna Yojana” are entitled to 35 kg of subsidized food grains for the same period. Schedule I prescribes the subsidized prices of rice, wheat and cereals at Rs3, Rs2 and Re1 per kilo, respectively. Section 4 provides for free meals to every pregnant woman and lactating mother to meet “prescribed nutritional standards” during pregnancy and six months after childbirth plus a maternity cash benefit of Rs6,000.

Section 8 provides that the non-supply of foodgrains will be compensated by a food security allowance by the State Governments! The Bill casts onerous responsibilities on local authorities and State Governments. For example, each State has to create a Grievance Redressal Mechanism, a State Food Commission and provide sufficient and scientific storage facilities at the State, District and Block levels. The Discussion paper 2 points out that several State Governments will suffer considerably with this Bill. This certainly merited detailed discussion in Parliament and before a Select Committee. It would have been even better to have first launched this scheme on an experimental basis in a few States and then drafted the bill on the basis of lessons learnt.

What was the emergency that required this ordinance? If the hunger of millions of Indians has suddenly caused a pang of pain to our politicians, the primary step was to plug the horrendous leakage in our Public Distribution System (PDS). As such large-scale plunder is possible only with political patronage, it is not surprising that very little has been done to check this loot in most States. Section 29 of the Ordinance provides for monitoring by the same Vigilance Committees at the State, District, Block and fair price shop levels that monitor the PDS .In simple English, nothing will be done and all the malpractices will continue. Even if corrupt officials and politicians siphon off 20% of estimated Rs6.82 lakh crore of the likely expenditure, they stand to gain Rs1.36 lakh crore in three years.

The gargantuan amounts that will be spent on Food Security and other schemes will necessarily reduce the amounts available for improving our infrastructure, education and, equally important, our defence sector. Our global power and influence depends on our economic strength. India is slowly and steadily becoming a sick economy that will find it increasingly difficult to meet the inevitable external and internal shocks. We began 2013 with the country’s economy in a critical state. Not a single bold decision has been taken to take the country on the path of economic recovery. The Food Security Bill may well be the tipping point in our nation’s future and make economic recovery extremely difficult if not impossible. Philanthropy without productivity, welfare without wealth and charity without capital will guarantee the bankruptcy of any nation.

In fine, our political leaders are not like the benevolent, bearded man who brings gifts for children each Christmas. They are vampires masquerading as Santa Claus. They feed on the nation’s resources to win election after election. It does not occur to them that, in the not too distant future, there will be no blood left to suck. What will the vampires then do? Lord Macaulay pointed out that, in the fifth century, the Roman Empire was fearlessly plundered and laid waste by the barbarian Huns and Vandals, who came from without. India faces the tragedy of being plundered and laid waste in the 21st century by elected representatives from within.

(Arvind P Datar is a Senior Advocate of the Madras High Court and also practices in the Supreme Court. He has authored several important books on law and taxation.)