Right to Education act - The devil is in the detail

"The Ministry has received representations from several unaided and aided schools seeking clarification on the procedure to be followed for admission. The Ministry held a meeting with various stake holders on the 14th of August, 2010 to elicit their views for formulating a guideline for admissions,...."

Let's first discuss why the date has been emphasized. 

Through the Constitution (86th amendment) act, the central government introduced Article 21A into the Constitution in 2002. 

"The state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age six to fourteen years in such manner as the State, by law, shall determine."

That was how "Right to Education" was born. 

First, a quick observation on the year. Remember the innumerable times the UPA government said (and the media parrotted) "but we just followed the Cabinet decision of NDA government in 2001" while referring to the 2G scam? Also, remember the innumerable times the UPA reminded us (and the media parrotted) that all ills of the country are because of that dreaded 6 year rule by NDA? Then shouldn't it be logical for the RTE romanticists to give due credit to the NDA government for bringing in this amendment and making education a fundamental right? But I am asking for too much, and we are deviating from the main subject too. 

Anyways, in 2002 the then government amended the constitution and made education as a fundamental right. The next logical step would be to determine the manner in which this right will be implemented. A new government came to power in 2004 and took about 5 years to determine the manner. The result was the The Right of Children to Free And Compulsory Education Act, 2009 released on the 27th of August, 2009. One of the most important rule reads:

"The school .... shall admit in class I, to the extent of atleast twenty-five percent of the strength of the class, children belonging to weaker section and disadvantaged section in the neighbourhood and provide free and compulsory education till its completion"

So after taking a sweet 7 years to come up with the law, the UPA government announces that 25% of class 1 in private unaided schools should be with children from weaker section and disadvantaged section and...and does not provide any sort of guidelines to the schools (one of the main stakeholders) on how this procedure should be followed. And so the magnanimous Kapil Sibal calls for a meeting in 2010 to "formulate a guideline". Let's now see what the guideline is:

"...schools shall follow a system of random selection out of the applications received from children belonging to the weaker and the disadvantaged sections ..to fill....25% of the seats". 

Genius, no? 8 years after it was first envisaged that education will be a fundamental right, Kapil Sibal tells the schools to follow a "random" selection method and that is a guideline officially issued!! What about the other 75%? 

".... each school should formulate a policy under which admissions are to take place"

Double genius, no? Just the word random raises so many questions in one's mind. For example,  would selecting students based on who their favorite hero is constitute "random"? And the above wording is precisely why this RTE act looks so flawed. There I said it - it looks flawed! 

The media narrative has been so carefully drafted that anyone who objects to this act is labelled (amongst many things -elite, prejudiced). You hear, "poor are benefitted" from the union government and that should be end of the debate. More on that later. Let's come back to the bill.

So are the "poor" really benefitted? 

Fellow blogger Reality Check India demolishes that whole argument in his brilliant must read post here. The act specifies that 25% of seats during admission have to be reserved for disadvantaged and weaker sections of the society. The act defines:

• “child belonging to disadvantaged group” means a child belonging tothe scheduled caste, the scheduled tribe, the socially and educationally backward class or such other group having disadvantage owing to social, cultural, economical, geographical, linguistic, gender or such other factor, as may be specified by the appropriate Government, by notification;
• “child belonging to weaker section” means a child belonging to such parent or guardian whose annual income is lower than the minimum limit specified by the appropriate Government, by notification;

Here's a simple question. Whether a child belongs to "weaker section" or not is decided by an income limit of the parent. If the parent of a child who belongs to the "disadvantaged" group earns more than this limit, is the child still eligible? If so, then what just is the point of having a quota for parents who can afford it? If not, why is the government splitting the 25% into two groups when income is the only criteria? To put it in simple terms:

• Let's assume income limit is Rs. 5000/- a month.
• If the income of a parent is Rs. 4000/-, then his/her child is eligible for this quota. 
• If the income of a parent belonging to SC, ST etc, is 10,000/- per month, his/her child is eligible for this quota.
• If the income of a parent belonging to neither of these groups is Rs. 8,000/- per month, his/her child is NOT eligible for this quota.

So when Barkha Dutt says "didn't we say we would rather have an economic criterion for reservations than it being caste-driven? Well here, for the first time there is such a basis", you know what to tell her now! 

It would be a purely economic based criteria only if the government compartmentalizes income groups. Why can't the government do it? Something like:

• Upto Rs. 5000/- per month, free.
• From 5000 - 10000 per month, pay 10%
• 10000-15000 per month, pay 20 % and so on?

Wouldn't that make more sense? Wouldn't that then do justice to the actual lower income and poorer sections? Why bring in the charade of caste based reservations in here too? 

Then there's the problem of plenty. The Andhra Pradesh government defines "weaker sections" as: 

• others viz., BC, Minorities, OCs (whose annual income does not exceed Rs. 60,000/- per annum)

This Central Vigilance Committee report tells us that the criteria for issuing a White Ration Card for a family in Andhra Pradesh is: 

• Families with income upto  Rs 75,000 in urban areas and upto Rs 60,000 in Rural areas are now eligible for White Cards.

Now, the Andhra Pradesh Budget speech and an official hoarding below both tell us that:

•  there are about 2 crore families in this state (~7.5 crore people out of the 8.5 crore) that come under the above category.

I believe it will just be a matter of time before the weaker section is redefined to include the urban ceiling limit. Even without that, we will have lakhs of families that fall within the Rs. 60,000 limit. Now, how on earth will you randomly choose from such a large sample? What about the others that will be randomly left out? Will they be sent to government schools? Wait, more questions arise now! 

• If there is a government school and a private school (unaided) in the same "neighbourhood", will this quota be applicable? (AP Act defines "neighbourhood school" to be at a safe walking distance of 1km for primary and 3km for secondary. A school per km!)
• If so, how is this government justifying random selection of students to be benefitted from the quality of education in a private school?
• If not, why doesn't the act specifically mention the same? 
• Would those who are randomly left out now come under the "disadvantaged section"? 

Why only class 1?

Please note the other wholly arbitrary point. Why is this act restricted to only class 1 admission? What wrong have children in poverty in class 2 and 3 done? Was there nothing that the genius Kapil Sibal could do about this? What if some parent decides to lie about the child's age and put him in class 1? It is entirely possible, for the act states: 

• No child shall be denied admission for the lack of age proof. 

Training of the teachers

I wish to note a personal experience here. A couple of years back, I once addressed a group of engineering 4th year students. We had a lively interaction. The flow of dialogue was smooth, we could cut jokes and relate things quite smoothly. A few months after that, we invited a group of 12th class vocational course students to our office campus. These children were from an NGO and come from poor backgrounds. I volunteered to teach them for about two hours. And I started talking to them in the same flow as that of the engineering students. 15 minutes into the session, I realised I am failing woefully in communicating with them. Their lecturer told me that they are not used to this, and also told me that the lecturers are specially trained to teach them. I took a few tips, and then managed to talk to them further but could only partly succeed. 

The point I am trying to make is this - the teachers of existing private schools need to be trained extensively to teach kids from poor backgrounds. That's not because the teachers are elitist. They are used to a flow. They are accustomed a method of teaching that needs honing if they are teach a diverse group of students. So why can't the government say that the act will come into effect from 2013. In this one year, the government will identify all neighbourhood schools, have the teachers trained, have the principals discuss with the locals on modalities and be fully ready from 2013 onwards? But then this is too much to expect from the genius of Kapil Sibal, no?!

Actually this is not the first time Kapil Sibal is doing something like this. He did the same with uniform medical test across the country. His own party's state government's wanted 2 years time, so that both 1st year and 2nd year syllabus and teaching plan can be streamlined. But common sense typically eludes the genius of Kapil Sibal! 

Arbitrary everywhere

Randomness is written all over this law. Sample this: 

• No teacher shall engage himself or herself in private tuition or private teaching activity

So if you want to supplement your income, you are not allowed to do that? Who is the government to tell you not to conduction private teaching activity at your home? 

Or this:

• medium of instructions shall, as far as practicable, be in the child's mother toungue

As far as practicable? Just what does that even mean?? 

Or this:

• "No suit or other legal proceeding shall lie against...... in respect of anything which is done in good faith or intended to be done, in pursuance of this Act...."

Good faith? You want to know one example of good faith. A. Raja purely acted in "good faith" while deciding to sell 2G spectrum in 2008 for prices in 2001. Who writes such a law really?

And finally you have 15 member National and State Advisory councils. Another good political rehabilitation center has been established successfully. 

And the worst - Minority institutions exempted. 

The Supreme Court has upheld the UPA government's contention that unaided minority schools will not be covered under RTE. The Supreme Court said:

“Reservation of 25 per cent in such unaided minority schools will result in changing the character of the schools if the right to establish and administer such schools flows from the right to conserve the language, script or culture, which right is conferred on such unaided minority schools. " 

Now we have more questions! 

• There are "Hindu" schools that run to "conserve the language, script or culture". Why are they exempt then?
• If an unaided "minority school" does not run courses to "conserve the language, script or culture", then will it fall under the RTE ambit?
• For example, is the St. Ann's school in Secunderabad under the RTE ambit or not? 

All the laws relating to this RTE can be found here: http://mhrd.gov.in/rti_school  

And finally, the media narrative

Fellow blogger Reality Check India has compiled a near comprehensive list of the narrative in our media on this act here. 

Being opposed to the Right to Education is one thing. Being opposed to this particular act (method of implementation) of Right to Education is a totally different matter. While it's too much to expect from our media to differentiate between these two, I think it is also important to note a couple of previous instances of such carefully drafted narratives. 

• Take the Food Security Bill for instance. "How can we not afford to have Food security" thundered the editorial director of NDTV. The actual act was not discussed - only the romantic parts of it were discussed. Her reporter even thought FSB guarantees "free ration to all".  It was left to bloggers to read, and question the provisions in the act. This blogger also made a humble (but long attempt) to decode the Food Security Bill, here. 

• When Kapil Sibal pompously announced that there will be no more board exams for 10th class, the entire TV media erupted in joy. I remember a particular anchor even telling him that "tonight I bring with me the thank you of lakhs of children." or something like that. Do you know what the fine print was? If you are a CBSE student and wish to continue in the same school after your 10th class, then there is no need for you to write the board exam!! This means zilch for "lakhs of students", especially in my state Andhra Pradesh! 

• Take the NREGA for instance. Which mainstream media outlet even attempted to debate the failings of this system? NREGA benefits the poor and hence cannot be debated? Even MP's have expressed their misgivings about this scheme and here we are, romanticizing it eternally. 

• Take the Lokpal bill. That bill was debated endlessly. Pages of articles and hours of TV time went into dissecting each comma, full stop, word, sentence, and paragraph. Why? Because "it doesn't benefit the poor"?

Conclusion

I cannot but stress to the reader again, the importance of reading this blogpost on Reality Check India. Many details are debated there. 

Remember folks, the devil is always in the detail :)  

Devil in detail - Part 2 - Lokpal bill in Lok Sabha

Yesterday, the UPA government introduced the Lok Pal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2011 and the Constitution (116th Amendment) Bill, 2011 

After the minister introduced the bill, leader of opposition, Sushma Swaraj rose to speak. At around the 42nd minute, she was making some calculations needed for a constitutional amendment. This was in the context of 2/3rd of 50% total strength. She arrived at the figure of a minimum of 182 members have to agree. 

Leader of the house, Pranab Mukherjee stood up at this point of time. At around the 43rd minute, he clarified that a minimum of 275 votes are needed for a constitutional bill to be passed. Minimum 275. Sushma Swaraj said she stands corrected and proceeded with her speech. 

Let's quickly see what the rule book says. 

Constitution Amendment Bills have to be passed in each House of Parliament by a special majority ie. by a majority of the total membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of the House “present and voting”. 

It effectively means that atleast 273 members have to support the bill, and on top of that 2/3rd of those who are present in the house should support the bill. Only then can the constitution be amended. 

Now, let's see what happened at the end of the day, yesterday. 

The Constitution amendment bill (116th Amendment), 2011 was put up for vote. 251 members voted for it. The official strength of the ruling coalition is 277. After some complicated mathematical operations, we see that 26 members of the ruling coalition were missing (in which there were congress MPs too!). This government could not get the minimum required support for passing this bill, and yet is going on the overdrive to blame the BJP for "not wanting a strong Lokpal". 

Let's get into a few details in a short while. Before that, another important piece of information. 

For the past 6-8 months, Lokpal and Lokayukta was the most debated bill everywhere. Normally reticent working class also took to streets demanding a strong lokpal (though they had no idea on the details). Government, led by Kapil Sibal, screamed on top of their voice saying "Parliament is supreme."

Yesterday, the Lokpal bill was passed by voice vote. Some members demanded "division of votes" for some of their amendments. The government's numbers were only in the range of 247-251. SP, BSP, AIADMK walked out of the house because they did not like the bill and their "demands were not met". Walking out meant that the government can get this through technically. 

 BJP, JD(U), SS, CPI, CPI(M) were outrightly opposing this Lokpal bill. We still don't know what TMC was thinking. Either way, a bill that captured the imagination of so many did not even have the support of 50% of the total strength of the house. Not even 273 members supported this bill - and we are witness to the headline today - "Lokpal bill passed". 

And media screams - "History made". 

Rhetorical arguments for congress is that "BJP is against Lokpal", "Opposition is against Lokpal". Wrong. They are against this version of the Lokpal. 

Sonia Gandhi apparently said that:

BJP's asli chehra dekha hamne.this despite their commitment for constitutional status for #lokpal in standing committee

Sushma Swaraj in her speech yesterday said that the Standing committee explicitly said there should be no reservations in Lokpal. The Sonia Gandhi led government brings in this bogus of reservations in a constitutional body, and then when the opposition cries foul with this version, rhetoric flows and media laps it up? 50% reservation in a constitutional body? What next? Reservation in EC, CAG etc? Whom are we really fooling here?

Members from the opposition articulated their objections and reservations in good detail yesterday. They went into specifics as to why they were objecting to this version of the Lokpal bill. Subjects like minority reservations, federal structure ( here too, Kapil Sibal painted a picture that the opposition was against strong Lokayukta which was not the case!), composition, selection, removal, even age limit was discussed! 

Meanwhile, what is this fuss about giving it a constitutional status? Primarily because this was Rahul Gandhi's "game changing" idea, the government lapped it up. From the limited discussion on twitter, looks like the only advantage of having such a status is that disbanding the institution will be difficult. Either way, this is purely mis-management by the Sonia Gandhi led government. Like Sushma Swaraj said, the government's aim seems to have been to bring some version of the bill, somehow get it passed and say "We passed the bill". 

That's exactly what happened yesterday. This version of the Lokpal bill did not even get the "ayes" of 50% of the total strength of Lok Sabha. This rhetorical bluff of "opposition not supporting" is getting nauseating to hear. 

Finally our media. 

A division of votes is necessary to even introduce a constitutional amendment bill. Same voting rule applies here too. A minimum of 273 and 2/3rd of those present in the house will have to agree. Yesterday, 321 members agreed for the bill to be introduced in the house. Just for introduction. CNN-IBN journalist Pallavi Ghosh was thrilled. 

Rahul's as desired constitutional amendment bill passed

Only to realise that the vote was just for introduction. Each clause of the bill had to be voted upon. And then the true numbers came out. And then she says:

Rahul's dream shattered: no constitutional status to lokpal..govt blames bjp..politics begins

Within the hour, the media went from bill passed to bill shattered. And the politics begins! 

The devil is in the detail - Food Security Bill

The tax payer is the most abused person in the country. 

Earn money, pay tax. Buy a vehicle, pay road tax. Buy an ice-cream, pay service tax. On all these taxes, pay more tax for "education cess". Get "fringe benefit" from your company, pay tax. If you give "fringe benefit" to employees, pay tax. And on top of your corporate tax, pay more tax for "education cess". Register your house, pay tax. Invest money, pay tax on returns from that investment. Buy goods, pay Value added tax. Buy liquor, pay tax. Essentially, pay tax when you earn and spend.  For 2010-2011, the money earned by the government of India from various kinds of taxes is Rs. 7,46,65,10,00,000/- only. Approximately Seven lakh crores. 

But the moment the tax payer actually wants better roads for which he is paying money, s/he is derided. How shameless of you to demand from an already over-burdened, over-worked government to make proper use of your money? The moment a tax payer wants to know where exactly the "education cess" is going, lectures are reeled out on how the payee is out of touch with reality and how s/he should travel to the villages to know how bad the education system is. 

TV channels shout from the roof-top - "tax payer's money being wasted", but when the "tax payer" actually comments on current affairs/politics, s/he is immediately labelled saying, "but you don't vote". Actually it works two ways - if you are not familiar with current affairs, you are derided. If you are familiar, then you are derided too! 

Rupees Seven lakh crores is what the tax payer gives the government and then s/he has to face the question - "What is it that you are doing for the country?" Embarrassing, no? Even more embarassing, when you are just expected to pay and not lament/comment on how it is being spent! 

And that's precisely what this rant is going to be. I have serious issues with how the money is being spent.abused. And because I make a contribution (though minuscule percentage) to that large tax treasury, I am taking the freedom here to vent out my complaints. And yeah, I do vote. And I did not vote for the Congress, so please to spare me the "you voted for this government, so live with it" argument. 

The picture below is a hoarding near the Jubilee Hills junction in Hyderabad. It talks about the boon to the poor - Rs.1/kg rice scheme. Apologies for the angle at which it was taken - we were on a bike and could not stop for a better angle. Nevertheless, I marked in red the important point in the hoarding, which when translated reads thus: 

"7.5 crore poor people will benefit"

See now I have a problem with this number. The census of 2011 puts the population of AP at 8.46 crores. Doing some complicated math, we can conclude that the AP government has classified a meagre 88.65% of it's population as "poor". The civil supplies minister also announced that about 25 lakh applications for a white ration card are pending. And because the Chief Minister does not want "anyone to sleep with hunger", he reduced the cost of rice from a whopping Rs.2/kg to Rs.1/Kg ! 

I sincerely apologise if my understanding is wrong, but shouldn't any self respecting government do more to bring people out of poverty than to push them into poverty? Is it wrong to expect that the policies of the government should enable more poor people to become self sufficient and grow along with the economy?  But gee - how insensitive can I get? I, the salaried class, the luxuried class - have the guts to mock the meagre 88.62% poor and their capacity to pay? How arrogant of me to actually contribute money for schemes like this and yet question their sanctity stupidity! 

And then came along the National Food Security bill. This time, I did not want to be arrogant, ill-informed, ignorant etc. And right at that point of time, much to my staggering good luck, the Editorial Director of NDTV tweets: 

"Incredible to hear Amartya Sen,Jean Dreze explain lucidly &eloquently, why India cant afford NOT to have a Food Security bill.9:30pm,Sunday"

So now I eagerly wait for Sunday to come. Now, I know that all my insensitive doubts about this massively expensive food security bill will be cleared by the panel of experts. And at the beginning of the show,  the scroll reads: 

"More children die in India at birth than in Bangladesh and Nepal."

Well, given that the population of India is much much more than Bangladesh and Nepal put together, wouldn't the actual number of children dying also be more? But we digress. The show begins, and for about 15 minutes, no concrete statistics are put out. No numbers whatsoever. The eternal rhetoric of the need to feed the poor etc goes on. And then a comment by a man from Gorakhpur. This man has a genuine complaint about nutrition in food and also the need to tackle deadly diseases like encephalitis. And the discussion veers towards health care, which has no connection to the Food security bill. 

What the man wanted was proper health care, which is a perfectly genuine demand and I bet no tax payer in this country will object if the government chooses to spend on health care. The show moved on to corruption, economy blah blah, that I lost interest. I did not know anything new after the 20 minutes that I watched it. On top of this, one of the journalist on the show thinks that the food bill "guarantees free ration"! 

So, I made one more attempt. PRS Legislative site had put up the draft of the food security bill. 

Every person belonging to priority households and general households,.. shall be entitled to receive every month from the State Government,.. such quantity of foodgrains at such prices as may be specified in Schedule I .

The current Public Distribution System classifies card holders into three categories.

• Above Poverty Line
• Below Poverty Line
• AAY - Antyodaya Anna Yojana.

AAY identifies 1.5 crore poorest of the poor families in the country. And then gives them rice at Rs.3/kg and wheat at Rs.2/kg (35kgs per family). 1.5 crore poorest of the poor families means about 6-8 crore people in the country, which is about 6% of the population. 

This was in the year 2000. In the year 2011, the central government wants to increase this 5% to 46% rural and 28% urban "poor people". Is this progress? Is this what we have reduced "aam aadmi" to?

Anyways, the devil always lies in the detail. 7kgs of "foodgrain" per person. Foodgrain is defined as " rice, wheat or coarse grains or any combination thereof ". So therefore a four member family has to come up with a combination of its needs. Let's do some complicated math. 

Currently, various states (with the exception of visionary states like AP) give rice at Rs.3.50-Rs.5.50 range to BPL families. Assuming a four member family gets 21 kg of rice at Rs. 3 instead of Rs.5.50/-, they are saving a whopping 21*2.50 = Rs. 52.50 per month.  Wheat is sold at Rs.7 a kg in AP. Assuming that is the national average - there's a further saving of 7*5= Rs.35. A total of Rs.87.50 per month per family. Is our country in such dire straits that 46% of our rural population are thrilled at the prospect of saving about 3 rupees per day? Is it is not a grave setback that we are actually encouraging them to entitlements like this, and giving them false hope that this price will remain low for a long time?

The next small detail - Rs.1/kg for coarse grains. 

The average shelf life of coarse grains is limited, making them unsuitable for long-term storage and distribution under PDS. The inclusion of coarse cereals under PDS cannot be taken up as a national level programme since there is no standard variety of coarse grain. However, initiatives on the part of state governments catering to the needs of specific localities are possible.

No, those above observations are not by those wretched tax payers. It is an observation made by the planning commission, in it's 10th Five Year plan (2002-2007). Just about 10 years ago, the planning commission observed that coarse grains cannot be distributed through PDS. But this is 2011, which means another five year plan has come up. Take a look at the PDS section in 11th five year plan. No mention at all about the coarse grains. None. 

So now we have no plan on how to store and distribute the grains, but we have a bill which wants to distribute this at Rs.1/kg to 46% rural population and 28% urban population. 

A small complication here. The bill limits the subsidy to "upto 75% of rural and 50% urban population". What about my state, Andhra Pradesh then? We have a meagre 88.6% people... :( 

Now, let's take a look at the burden on the government for this hare-brained scheme. The picture of the hoarding is another example. The burden for giving rice at Rs.1/kg to 7.5 crore people is Rs.2600 crore. According to the current Food bill, it looks like about 75 crore people are the intended beneficiaries. So after doing some complicated math, we arrive at a conservative estimate of ~Rs. 26,000 crore per year. And this is with respect to subsidy on one food grain. A conservative estimate of subsidy on three foodgrains can be put at Rs. 50,000 crore. Where will this money come from, year over year? Remember the tax payer?

Phew! 

Did you think the the bill is done? No, more is yet to come. "Nutritional food to children from 6 months to 6 years, every day, free of charge." and "Nutritional food as part of mid-day meals for children from 6-14 years, except on school holidays". Remember the "education cess" you pay on top of all those taxes? The mid-day meal is partly funded through that cess. And now we have to feed children upto 6 years too. So we will need more money. Any guesses from where it will come?

The best part of this bill is yet to come:

"In case of failure to supply the entitled quantities of foodgrains or meal ... such persons shall be entitled to receive food security allowance from the concerned State Government,... as may be prescribed by the Central Government."

So there you go - these people will be paid money if they cannot be given food grains. And it has not yet been decided how much! So we have no clarity on how we will distribute coarse grains and how much money will be given in case of failure to distribute. Now obviously, you can't give them 52 rupees in lieu of the 21kg rice they are entitled to.  The amount will be atleast 3 times - which means you dole out Rs.150 per family. And more importantly, central government will decide how much the state government will pay - can there be a bigger incursion on the federal freedom? Ohh no wait - this provision will enable Rahul Gandhi to go into opposition ruled states and say "Your state govt. is not spending the money our central govt. is giving". 

The Food security bill also provides for nutritional food for pregnant women and lactating mothers. While this aspect is appreciable given the number of deaths at birth, the argument that many of us are trying to make is that such schemes have to reach those who are in actual need of it. Not this "One size, fits all" category. This bill also gives a provision for feeding destitute and starving people, two meals a day. 

So we now have a conservative estimate of Rs.50,000 crores plus no estimates on nutritional food, meals for destitute and on the money to be disbursed. We also have no clue on the guidelines to identify this 75%, 46%, 50%, and 28% population. Some well meaning folks peg the bill at about 2,00,000 crores too. Official estimates vary from Rs. 22,000 crores to Rs. 1,15,000 crores. From the contrived logic of this blogpost, we can atleast conclude that the 22,000 crore number is a total myth! 

So what is the solution? 

• Revitalisation of Agriculture
• Procurement, Storage and Movement related interventions
• Reforms in TPDS

No no, those are not my ideas. In the last 2 pages of the bill, the drafters have enlightened us with this supreme gyan. The think we have to invest more in agriculture infrastructure. Man, where would we have been without such brilliant guidance. 

Unfortunately, that dreaded state of Gujarat shows us the solution. They have already done these exact same things the drafters of this bill think should be done. Since it is a sin to emulate anything that happens in Gujarat, I guess we will be stuck with rhetorical bills like these only.

Thankfully, Chief Ministers like Jayalalitha and Narendra Modi have already objected to the bill saying it infringes upon the economic freedom of the states. Jayalalitha also is believed to have said that this bill creates a lot of confusion too. As we can see above, a mere look at the provisions is throwing up so many combinations, no wonder leaders feel this is confused. 

At a time, when we should be talking of progress, we seem to be taking pride in the exact opposite. There are many basic questions that arise out of schemes like NREGA, FSB etc. Even members of Parliament are complaining about the ill-effects of schemes like NREGA and yet we do not want to take any corrective measure whatsoever. 

We need better debates. We need better dissemination of information. Not mere rhetoric or random observations like this. Thankfully, the bill will not immediately become law. It has to be introduced in Parliament, then has to go to standing committee and then will come back to the Cabinet. That buys us atleast 3 months. 

Ohh and before I forget, can you imagine the scope of corruption in such a hare-brained scheme? Can you imagine the amount of pilferage? Can you imagine the clamour for being classified in that 75%? Can you imagine the loss to the exchequer when there will be a food grain shortage and money disbursement will start? And in case you forgot, you fund that exchequer. Your money will be abused, and you will just remain a mute spectator. 

The tax payer is the most abused person in our country.