To reduce malnutrition in rural areas, the Jharkhand government has proposed to offer pulses at subsidised rates at ration shops across the state. The government proposes to cover 2.6 crore ration card holders offering them split Bengal gram (chana dal) at subsidised rates at a time when all 24 districts in the state are facing a drought.
Minister for Food and Public Distribution Saryu Roy said the proposal had been approved by the food department and will soon be presented before the state cabinet. If cleared, the proposal is likely to be implemented from September.
Under the National Food Security law, poor households get only wheat and rice at subsidised rates, and state governments have the choice to provide additional items like pulses or edible oils if they bear the additional cost.
At present, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka and Telangana distribute pulses or edible oils to some categories of ration beneficiaries, while Chhattisgarh provides chana dal to beneficiaries in predominantly tribal areas.
In a recent petition in the Supreme Court on measures to tackle drought, the Swaraj Abhiyan, a political organisation, demanded that all households in drought-affected states be provided with 5 kg of grain and 2 kg of pulses per month through the public distribution system.
Procurement of pulses
Jharkhand, one of the poorest states, has one of the worst levels of malnutrition in the country. Over six lakh, or nearly 12%, of children below six years of age in the state suffer from severe malnutrition.
In Jharkhand, anaemia and birth defects affect 69.5% women and adolescent girls, and over 70% of children below five, according to two consecutive National Family Health Surveys (1999 and 2006).
In 2011, in a survey by IIT-Delhi economist Reetika Khera, in districts of Dumka and undivided Ranchi, more than a quarter of the households surveyed reported that one family member missed meals in the previous three months, and 12% households had not consumed dal even once the previous week.
Senior government officials in Jharkhand said that the state’s proposal will help address these nutritional deficiencies, which have not improved significantly in recent years.
“Jharkhand has very poor nutrition levels, particularly iron and protein deficiencies,” said VK Choubey, secretary, food public distribution and consumers affairs department. “Our proposal is to provide at least 1 kg packaged chana dal per household per month at subsidised rates. An empowered committee is examining what the rates should be and the provision will come into place by September. Besides this, we plan to fix the rates for red gram or arhar dal across the state, and introduce salt fortified with iron at ration shops to address the high levels of anaemia.”
Choubey said the department planned to procure pulses through e-Market Limited, a marketing platform of NCDEX, an online commodity exchange, instead of floating tenders to procure it from traders.
In neighbouring Chhattisgarh, where the state government provides 2 kg split Bengal gram in 85 tribal blocks at Rs 5 a kg, procurement of dal through tenders from the market has remained a challenge due to fluctuating prices.
In some instances, traders who were awarded tenders refused to deliver the pulses if the prices increased between procurement and delivery, said Samir Garg, an advisor to the commissioners of the Supreme Court on food security issues in Chhattisgarh. Garg pointed out that in 2013, the Chhattisgarh government had started providing pulses in non-tribal blocks as well but had to discontinue the initiative a year later because of a fiscal burden accruing from sharp changes in the prices of pulses.
The prices of pulses have been on an upward trend for a while now. In 2015, red gram (arhar, also known as toor dal) was retailing at Rs 200 per kg.
Too little, too late
While online procurement may allow Jharkhand to source pulses for its public distribution system from the larger market and thus avoid the problems of sharp fluctuations in prices to an extent, activists with the Right to Food Campaign in Ranchi said that the government's proposal was too limited in quantity and its implementation had no sense of urgency.
“The proposal has been discussed for months now,” said Balram, an advisor to Supreme Court commissioners on food security issues in Jharkhand. “It would have been most effective if implemented immediately after the state government declared drought in December last year.”
Siraj Dutta, also an activist with the Right to Food Campaign, said that 1 kg of pulses a month was inadequate for a household's needs. “This quantity will hardly last a few days for a family of four or five members,” said Dutta. “The government is dragging its feet on implementation and issuing new ration cards to 87% of the rural population as mandated by the Food Security law.”
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