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March 2010

EDITORIAL

The Women’s Reservation Bill, 2010 was passed after two days of high drama by the Rajya Sabha on 9 March 2010. It is a major step in the struggle for equality. The arguments for opposing the bill, spanning over nearly 14 years, can be divided into two broad divisions: one, that this bill will suppress the assertion of the backward castes that has been on the rise post-Mandal, and two, that this bill will only facilitate the nurturing of family politics. The two arguments come from two ends of the spectrum of the political class but reflect entrenched patriarchal values.

The first argument which reflects the view of the dominant political opposition within the parliament is so articulated that it pitches women not just against men but also against socially oppressed classes and castes. Women are essentially portrayed as this homogenous class of privileged people who would, if provided reservation, displace representatives, all male, from backward castes and communities, thereby reversing the expanding process of political assertion of backward castes and communities. This argument is baseless not just in substance as the bill, even in its current form, allows for quota within quota, i.e., 33% reservation within the 20% reservation for SCs and STs, but also from the fact that India ranks a poor 114th among 134 countries in gender equality. It also assumes that women do not have the capacity to engage and struggle for social equality both, within their world and in the larger society within a democratic framework. In fact it ignores the fact that struggles for gender equality have inevitably strengthened other struggles for social equality, and so has emerged as the principal agency for persistent struggle for equality in every sphere of human relationship.

However despite the Sachar Committee report on Muslims revealing the abysmal condition of the largest religious minority in the country, with the women being more vulnerable, there is no provision in the bill for any reservation for them. The question of reservation for religious minorities forms a part of a larger discourse and though it is essential to address this issue, it cannot be a reason to stall the reservation bill.

This argument then boils down to quota for OBCs. Given the fact that there exists no reservation yet for OBCs (though we are of the view that the electoral system should be changed to reflect and represent more adequately the diversity of social catagories and political views) the political forces that bring up this issue, only raise it with respect to the question of women’s reservation. One must also analyse the composition of this political class that has asserted itself post-Mandal. They almost invariably represent a class of landed peasantry that does not use its newly acquired political power to democratise the rural power structure or address other forms of social inequality and economic exploitation of the working people. Political assertion of OBCs rides on a social mobilisation paradigm and hence it is difficult to believe that the OBC women would lose out with women’s reservation! What this would actually mean is that the men, now in power, would have to make way for women from their castes.

The second argument is far more sinister as it comes in a garb of radicalism. It calls for assertion of women but views the bill as one that would promote ‘biwi-beti’s. It completely ignores the fact that the ‘young turks’ today in parliament are all sons of political families! Political families in India do not require a reservation bill to promote their own. Proponents of it also neglect the contribution of many women leaders in the national movement, in social movements, in peasant struggles and trade unions who have been leaders in their own right.

There is no doubt that the bill in its present form would not automatically bring emancipation of women or even empowerment of women, but it will only open up just another window of opportunity within the democratic structure of the country.

SPECIAL FEATURE

1910 TO 2010 – 100 YEARS OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

Increasing oppression of women and growing inequality forced women in the early 19th century to raise their voices and struggle for change. In 1908, 15000 women marched in New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. The first formal Woman’s Day was held on 3 May 1908 in Chicago presided by Lorine S Brown at the Garrick Theatre in which over 1500 women called for economic and political equality of women. In 1909, Woman’s Day was an official activity of the Socialist Party of America and was celebrated on 28 February. However the first National Women’s Day was celebrated in New York on 27 February 1910, at the Carnegie Hall with 3000 women calling for the right to vote following the four month long strike of New York’s shirtwaistmakers in which 80% of the strikers were women. In 1910 the second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen in which Clara Zetkin, leader of the ‘Women’s Office’ for the Social Democratic Party in Germany, tabled the idea of an International Women’s Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day to press for demands of women workers. The Conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women’s associations, including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin’s suggestion with unanimous approval. Between 1913 and 1914, International Women’s Day also became a day for protesting against the First World War. As part of the peace movement, Russian women took this initiative.

Second International Conference of Working Women, Copenhagen, 1910

Women’s Movement in India

India too has a rich history of women’s struggle for equality. As we in India celebrate the Centenary of International Women’s Day, we recall and salute the legacy of Savitri Bai Phule who pioneered education for women, defying the feudal forces; of Tarabai Shinde who challenged the dual standards towards women; of Rakhmabai who preferred to go to jail rather than live with the man to whom she was married as a child; of the women of Telengana who were at the forefront of the militant struggle of the 1940s for land and freedom. Women’s organizations were formed during the Srikakulam movement for the rights of adivasi people on land and forests in 1970s in Andhra Pradesh. Throughout the country women started organizing on their own, and also as part of other movements. In the 1980s women raised the issue of environmental degradation, through Chipko and Appiko movement. Rights for landed property were demanded in the Bodhgaya movement. Anti-liquor movements, anti-price rise movements, issues of land alienation and wife-beating were taken up in Shahada. Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh and POW took on the issues of equal wages and retrenchment of women, of sexual division of labour and questioning the culture that rationalizes it. Links between caste oppression and women’s oppression were raised by Purogami Stree Sangathan and Mahila Samta Sainik Dal. Women have achieved major strides in redefining family and inheritance, gaining right to political participation, in drawing attention to domestic violence, dowry deaths, and adverse sex ratio. Today, women are in the forefront of people’s resistance against corporate land grab and displacement across the country and are facing state repression.

Women Workers – How we fare?

2010 marks the centenary year of the International Women’s Day but conditions of women workers in our country has not improved much. Further with globalisation, the hard won victories of workers are fading away and there is an increasing trend for informalisation with significant feminisation of work. Latest NSSO figures show that the work participation rate of women workers has increased considerably but there is a general tendency for women to enter into paid work at younger ages than previously and the peak work participation rate for urban women has shifted from the age group 40-44 years in 1993-94 to 35-39 years in 2004-05. There has also been an overall decline in casual employment and a general increase in regular work and self-employment. This may seem encouraging but if one sectorally divides this employment, the increase is significant in the ‘other services’ sector, which typically includes domestic work, piece rate jobs for manufacturing and similar employments. Women working as domestic workers now number more than three million and account for more than 12 per cent of all women workers in urban India. The so called labour market dynamism is the greatest in the sector of domestic work. This is probably why the evidence on real wage trends of urban women is so disappointing. The average real wages have fallen between 1999-2000 and 2004-05 for both regular and casual women workers, and have hardly increased much even in relation to more than a decade earlier. For an economy that boasts of one of the highest GDP growth rates in the world over this period, this is certainly an indictment.

Source: Women Workers in Urban India, C P Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh, Hindu Business Line, 6 Feb 2006

This year over 25 Delhi-based organisations came together to form a Centenary Committee to mark the Centenary Year of the IWD. It organised a series of campaigns through the year. It launched the Dilli Chuppi Todo campaign urging people of Delhi to raise their voice against crimes against women. It also brought to Delhi the voices of women living under state repression in Orissa, Manipur, Jharkhand and Tami Nadu. Women from Kashipur, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh also came to speak on the impact of liberalization on women. A Dharna was also organised against the efforts to suppress the Shopian rape and murder. The Committee also collectively developed a women’s charter paving the way forward.

A rally and a public meeting was organised at the Jantar Mantar in Delhi on 8 March. The Charter called for:

Decisive government action against price rise: Prices of essential commodities, especially food and fuel have soared exceptionally. The UPA Government has done little to contain this inflation. Food production is declining with the government promoting production of bio-diesel, floriculture and also allowing a change in land use from agriculture for industrial purposes, and often for speculative SEZs. There is speculation and hoarding of essential items that is being legalized by the government. Huge tax exemptions are being offered to corporates while the government is taking austerity measures to cut social spending.

India ranks 114 among 134 countries in gender equality (The Global Gender Gap Index 2009, World Economic Forum). More than half of India’s women are undernourished. Instead of ensuring food for the people the UPA Government is proposing a targeted Right to Food Bill that will cover only those on BPL lists. BPL lists intrinsically is used to eliminate people and covers only 1/4th of rural and only 10% of the urban people. This bill in reality is only attempting to streamline the multiple entitlements ensured through successive Supreme Court judgements and cut down on food guarantee. Nothing less than a universal PDS can address the growing crisis of food availability for the poor. This should be supplemented with increase in food production, government procurement and end to future trading in food items.

Right to Health Care: With creeping privatisation of government health facilities and decontrolling of drug prices, quality healthcare has gone beyond the reach of the poor and especially women. It is also one element in the growing indebtedness of the poor. Last year it pushed 39 million Indians below the poverty line. It is six years since the UPA promised progressively to raise health expenditure to 3% of GDP but budgetary expenditure on health still hovers around the 2% of total expenditure mark. The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, aimed to protect BPL households from major health shocks that involve hospitalisation, has been allocated a paltry sum of Rs.350 crore – 0.03% of the total expenditure and 0.4% of the defence budget.

Equal Rights and Opportunities: Close to 245 million Indian women lack elementary education. Almost twice as many girls as boys are pulled out of school or never sent to school. Government schools are bereft of teachers and buildings and now the government has lowered its norms to make shortages appear normal. The Right to Education Act, 2009 is only eyewash as education is increasingly being privatized and moving further out of reach of girl children.

Much of women’s economic activity is not recognized as work and therefore most women workers receive none of the rights of workers. Their work is underpaid and lack dignity. In addition, given the social structure, they invariably bear the burden of household chores along with childcare and care for the old and others in need of care. Though, with increasing informalisation, more and more women are becoming primary earners, capital uses patriarchal values to brand them as secondary earners and therefore finds justification in undervaluing their work leading to intensification of the extraction of absolute profit.

Women workers won the 8-hour workday a century ago – but today this basic right is under attack. Women earn less than a third of that of men. Conditions of work are insecure. They face discrimination and sexual harassment at the workplace. Maternity and childcare benefits are almost absent in reality. Women seeking work from adivasi communities and backward areas are also vulnerable to trafficking. Even today, dalit women, deprived of alternate dignified employment due to lack of skilling initiatives of the government, are forced to work as manual scavengers.

The Government itself considers work of women to be subsidiary and hence hires lakhs of women across the country as ASHA workers, Anganwadi workers and helpers and teachers in adult education as honorary workers for programmes ostensibly being carrying out for women’s empowerment at wages far below the minimum wage!

Freedom from Sexual Assault and Harassment, Domestic and Public violence: Organised violence against women’s freedom to choose their way of life has also increased. The Sangh Parivar and other self-appointed custodians of ‘culture’ physically abuse women in public if they are construed to be violating the “Indian Culture” with Khaap Panchayats in Haryana and Western UP openly organising murder of young couples who fall in love or marry in defiance of caste norms with governments taking no action against them. Thus emboldened now they want to officially override the family laws and further subjugate women.

End to Violence and Discrimination by Dominant Social Groups: Rapes and violence against Dalit women are on the rise – and rarely are FIRs filed and cases under the SC/ST Act registered. There can be no denying that this violence is institutional because rape statistics for Dalit and adivasi women are disproportionately high. Muslim women raped by Hindu mobs sponsored by the BJP state government in 2002 in Gujarat are yet to receive justice and continue to face such violence even today. Sikh riot victims of 1984 are alos yet to get justice. Communal differences are being actively encouraged to prevent unity of the oppressed people in their struggles.

The Way Forward

NTUI affirms the urgent need of the trade union movement to address the issues of organisation of women workers and addressing their concerns in collective bargaining. It is aware of new complexities in women’s employment and organisation, arising in this phase of imperialist globalisation.

In the Second General Assembly of the NTUI, it resolved to develop a programme focussing on taking up women’s issues and gender concerns even when unions do not have women membership; building up women’s leadership within the federation and its affiliates; strengthening links with the women’s movement in order to enable a cross fertilisation of ideas and a building of lasting solidarity on gender concerns. It also resolved to build campaigns, with women’s organisations for a living wage, a policy of zero tolerance to violence against women, recognising women’s unpaid and unaccounted for work and for a national legislation for domestic workers to regulate their employment.

We’ve Marched a Hundred years
We’ll Fight Another Hundred years
To Win Equality!

[Revised and edited version of the booklet published by the Centenary Committee for International Women’s Day]

AFFILIATE NEWS

Women’s Day Celebrated on 10 March in Uttar Pradesh to honour Savitribai Phule: Hundreds of women workers with equal number of men from adjoining districts of Chandoli, Mirzapur, Kheri along with participants from Jharkhand and Bihar marched the streets of Robertsganj calling for an end to violence against women. The rally was organised by Kaimur Kshetra Mahila Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samity on 10 March in Robertsganj in Sonebhadra to mark the death anniversary of Savitribai Phule – also celebrated as women’s day. They also organised a two day poster exhibition and workshop on Violence against Women along with Jagori.

Rural Workers’ Unions Conference 13-14 March Patna: The eastern region Rural Workers’ Unions Conference was held at Shramik Disha, Patna on 13-14 March 2010. Over 80 delegates from 15 unions representing Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab, Uttarakhand, UP, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Orissa participated in the proceedings. The delegates deliberated at length over the critical issue of developing a distinct political identity of rural workers, given the immense complexity of production relations as well as socio-political relations. The conference also attempted to identify critical issues for organising rural workers and also to arrive at a common minimum charter that will take the isolated struggles forward and facilitate the process of forging unity among all unions and other organisations that organise rural workers. It was decided that at least two more such regional conferences will be organised by the end of this year to prepare for a National Conference.

Minimum wage Violation in Bangalore Garment Industry: On March 2, 2009, the Labour Department of Karnataka issued a Minimum Wages Notification (No. KAE 46 LMW 2006) increasing the minimum wage for the tailoring industry. The increase was published in the Karnataka government’s official Gazette and took effect on March 26, 2009. The increase was the first since 2001. The March 2009 increase raised the legal minimum wage for workers in the city of Bangalore, including required allowances, to 126.97 rupees– a monthly minimum wage of Rs. 3,302 rupees for workers in the “unskilled” category which includes certain categories of sewing machine operators, helpers, trimmers, etc. which constitutes nearly 30-35% of Bangalore’s apparel industry workforce, which is roughly 125,000 employees.

However, the garment factories across Bangalore are refusing to pay this increased wage to the workers and continue to pay at the earlier wage rate which, including allowances, amounts to Rs. 113.20 daily or Rs. 2943 monthly. The result is an underpayment to each worker of Rs. 359 per month. In addition the Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI) has petitioned the Labour Department of the Government of Karnataka for a reduction in the minimum wage claiming “errors” in the calculation of the increase. It was the long struggle of Garment and Textile Workers Union that won the minimum wage increase in March 2009 but the struggle continues as it is yet to be implemented.

Goa Government revises minimum wages: Panaji, March 11: Goa government has revised the minimum wages increasing it by nearly 30%. The revision in the wages has come after almost three years and it will affect around three lakh workers from organised and unorganised sector in the state. The State Labour Minister announced that the minimum wages to various skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers would be raised from Rs 103 per day to Rs 150 per day in 20 scheduled employment categories. The pay revision will be effective from 24 December 2009 and it was assured that the workers would be paid their arrears.

The Minister added that he was aware that hoteliers, including even some five-star hotels in the state were paying very low wages (as low as Rs 500-1000 a month) to trainees and others. He has directed the Labour Inspectors to check this problem. He also declared that he was in favour of the hotel industry introducing service charges of 10 per cent and distributing the same to the employees. Hotel Employees Federation of India (HEFOI) has been demanding this for a while.

CAMPAIGN NEWS

CAMPAIGN ON RIGHT TO FOOD

EGoM clears Draft Food Security Bill: 18 March, New Delhi: The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) cleared the draft Food Security Bill that seeks to guarantee 25 kg of foodgrain in a month at Rs 3 per kg. The group, headed by the Finance Minister, also decided to recommend to the Cabinet for increase in the quantity of foodgrain for the 11.5 crore families above poverty line through ration shops.

ASIA FLOOR WAGE CAMPAIGN

The Asia Floor Wage Campaign held its International Steering Committee meeting between 12-14 March in Jakarta to consolidate plans as we move forward. Since the public launch, members of the campaign have held several meetings with multi-stakeholder initiatives such as the Fair Labour Association and the Ethical Trading Initiative as well as many International Brands. Meetings with governments and suppliers have also started.

CAMPAIGN ON CLIMATE JUSTICE

Jindal Steel Plant gets Carbon Credits: UNFCCC issues Carbon Credits to yet another CDM project. JSW Steel has got carbon credit allotment for its Generation of Electricity through combustion of waste gases from Blast furnace and Corex units at JSW Steel Limited (in JPL unit 1), at Torangallu in Karnataka. Other Parties involved: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Noble Europe Limited, EDF trading Limited, Noble Carbon Credits Limited). Amount of CERs: 504214. Monitoring period: 01 Nov 08 – 30 Jun 09.

Coca-Cola to pay Rs. 200 Crores in Compensation: Plachimada, 23 March: A Kerala government panel report has recommended that beverages multinational Coca-Cola pay Rs 216.26 crores as compensation for losses caused to local communities and the environment by its plant in Plachimada village in Kerala’s Palakkad district. The 14-member committee of found that the plant had adversely affected water availability and severely affected water quality in the area. The committee quantified the damage suffered by various sectors as a consequence of the plant’s functioning: loss to agriculture: Rs 16 crore, pollution of water resources: Rs 62 crore, cost of providing water: Rs 20 crore, damage to health: Rs 30 crore, wage loss and opportunity cost: Rs 20 crore. It has also recommended setting up a tribunal to take the legal process forward as the local community would be unable to do so by its own. Coca-Cola has refuted the findings of the report.

NEWS UPDATES

Rajya Sabha passes Women’s Reservation Bill: 9 March, New Delhi: The controversial yet historic Women’s Reservation Bill, ensuring 33% reservation to women in Parliament and state legislative bodies, was passed in the Rajya Sabha on 9 March after two days of high drama that saw suspension of seven members who violently disrupted proceedings. The Bill, pushed by the government despite the threat of withdrawal of support, was passed by a two-third majority, a day after it was moved in the House for consideration but could not be taken up because of unruly scenes. Of the votes polled, 186 were in favour of the bill and only one was against.

Delhi’s minimum wage increased: Delhi: The Delhi Cabinet on 1 March approved the minimum wages for unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workers effective from 1 February 2010. The new wage structure will also cover clerical and non-technical supervisory workers working on the daily wage system. With the hike, minimum wages for unskilled labour has been increased from Rs 163 to Rs 203 per day. In case of semi-skilled (non-matriculate) workers, minimum wages will be Rs 225 per day. In case of skilled workers (matriculate), wages will be Rs 248 per day. An unskilled worker will now get Rs 5,272 per month a part of the new wage scheme, while semi-skilled workers will get Rs 5,850 per month and skilled workers will be entitled for Rs 6,448 per month. Daily wages have also been hiked for clerical and non-technical supervisory staff. In case of workers who are graduates and above, wages per day will Rs 270 with a monthly amount of Rs 7,020.

Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme in Kerala: The Kerala Finance Minister announced the launch of an Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme, the first of its kind in India, on 5 March 2010. The ministry has also earmarked Rs 20 Crores for the Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme, to be named after the iconic social reformer Ayyankali. It will have provisions to address the problem of educated unemployed.

Cabinet nod to Plantation Labour (Amendment) Bill: New Delhi: The Cabinet on 15 March approved the Plantation Labour (Amendment) Bill, 2008 as suggested by the Parliamentary Standing Committee. The bill envisages safety precautions to be taken by plantation owners for storage, utilisation and handling of agro-chemicals. It would also regulate employment of women as well as children below 14 years of age in handling hazardous chemicals in plantations. The new legislation would benefit plantation workers in states like West Bengal, Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, among others. It would regulate work timings, health, safety and welfare of the plantation workers. The plantation employers would also be bound by Workmen’s Compensation Act once the new law comes into force.

Creeping Privatisation in Air India, Coal India: The civil aviation ministry is planning to ask the cabinet to sell the state’s 49% stake in the National Aviation Company of India. The ministry will discuss the idea with senior ministers before any cabinet note. An earlier attempt to sell a stake in the airline in 2001 failed due to opposition from within the National Democratic Alliance, which was in power. Air India is also seeking to introduce a 15-17% pay cut for employees of the loss-making Air India-Indian Airlines combine. By this the management is eying a saving of Rs 700-800 crores on its annual wage bill of about Rs 3,100 crores through this move.

In another move State-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL) is planning to pay its workers around Rs 5,000 crores in salary arrears in an attempt to induce employees to subscribe to the company’s forthcoming initial public offering (IPO). As many as 63 million shares, or 10% of the equity will be sold by the Union government that are reserved for the 4.1 lakh employees of CIL and its eight wholly owned subsidiaries. They have also been offered a 5% discount on the issue price. Trade unions are opposing this share sale as this is just another move for privatising a profit-making PSE.

Minimum Wage not paid to workers at Commonwealth Games sites: 18 March: In a big embarrassment to the Delhi government ahead of the Commonwealth Games, a committee appointed by the Delhi High Court, in response to a PIL filed by the PUDR, has reported that workers at Games-related construction sites were not being paid minimum wages and were being made to work overtime and not paid overtime rates. Recommending “exemplary fine” be levied on errant authorities, the report said steps needed to be taken to start time bound registration of workers and extending to them benefits like weekly offs and hygienic living conditions. The committee said many accidents at these sites were never reported while workers continued to work without safety gear. It also said muster rolls were not verified and that abuse of migrant workers was common by the Contractors. The high court panel members could not access sites under the control of DIAL and DMRC. PUDR has urged the court to ensure that the workers get insurance cover, wage slips, paid weekly offs, proper medical facilities and workmen compensation, among other things. An estimated 4.15 lakh daily wage contract workers are employed at these sites.

Lockout at Bosch to hit vehicle makers: Firm’s bigger Adugodi plant also faces a lockout: Mumbai: Workers at Bosch’s Naganathapura unit near Bangalore have been on a go-slow protest since 12 February, demanding a wage hike of 25%. On 8 March, the local arm of German parts maker Bosch AG declared a lockout. Workers at Bosch’s Adugodi plant, also in Bangalore—the company’s biggest plant—are also staging a similar protest and likely to face a lockout. The Naganathapura factory supplies critical electrical parts to vehicle manufacturers such as Mahindra and Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors.

The Bosch management is offering an average wage increase of Rs. 3,000 per worker, while the union, affiliated to the CITU, is demanding an interim hike of at least Rs. 4,500. This is the second time in 14 months that Bosch has faced a labour crisis. The firm had declared a lockout at its Jaipur factory in December 2008, following protests of workers.

LEGAL NOTES

Equal pay for equal work has no mechanical application – Supreme Court: November 2009: In a judgement the Supreme Court on 21 October ruled that contract employees or daily wagers cannot claim regularisation and are not entitled to salary equal to those of regular employees, recruited through a due selection process laid down under the law. The Supreme Court gave this ruling while deciding appeals filed by the Haryana Government against the Punjab and Haryana High Court judgement holding that employees once recruited irrespective of the selection process, were entitled to “equal pay for equal work” under Article 14 of the Constitution. The SC ruled that the principle of equal pay for equal work has no mechanical application in every case and that Article 14 permits reasonable classification based on qualities or characteristics of persons recruited and grouped together, as against those who were left out. The very fact that those employees who have not gone through the process of recruitment may itself in certain cases, make a difference even if they may perform the same work. The bench said for the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work, the Courts had to consider various dimensions of a given job. It cannot be judged by the mere volumes of work.

PRESS STATEMENTS

Open Letter to the Prime Minister from the Right to Food Campaign against the EGoM Draft National Food Security Bill, 2010

Dr Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister
Government of India
Honourable Prime Minister,

We the members of Right to Food Campaign are writing to you to express our deep distress at the proposed draft bill of the National Food Security Act. From all accounts in the media, the bill that has been cleared by the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) for discussion in the Cabinet is a very minimalist draft which proposes an entitlement of 25 kgs of food grains at Rs.3 per kg for all BPL households.

We are shocked by the EGoM draft bill which does not address any of the nutritional needs of the people. This draft is not only a betrayal of the people of India but also is in contempt of the letter and spirit of the orders of the Supreme Court in the right to food case. This draft completely ignores the multiple entitlements which constitute the right to food of all ages of people and all sections of society including vulnerable groups.

The single entitlement proposed by the EGoM in the name of food security of the people by provisioning for only 25 kgs per household is in fact less than what is the current entitlement of 35 kgs which has been mandated by Supreme Court orders. A legislation that promises a “right” but in reality reduces the existing entitlement is completely unacceptable to the people of India and an affront on their dignity.

To make matters worse, the proposed Bill seeks to restrict this “entitlement” further to just BPL families (as per Planning Commission estimates). As you are undoubtedly aware, child malnutrition rates in India at 46% is amongst the highest in the world, and twice the rate of child malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover we have shamefully high maternal mortality, a large part of which is attributable to the malnutrition amongst women.

Nothing short of a universal entitlement for the Public Distribution System would suffice to change the existing situation. Every adult resident of the country must be covered by the PDS with entitlements of 14 kgs of cereals (including nutritious millets) per month at Rs 2 per kilogram, 1.5 kilogram of pulses at Rs 20 per kg and 800 gms of cooking oil at Rs 35 per kg with children getting half the entitlements and the ration cards made in the name of female head of the household.

Sir, as you are well aware, targeting minimum food entitlements is to create food insecurity. If people classified outside BPL lists express a need for subsidised food – they clearly have a right to receive it as they need it for their sustenance. A universal entitlement for food is the only way that the country can ensure food security for all.

We also strongly feel that replacing food entitlements by cash will not bring about any food security to individuals instead the entire purpose of ensuring food and nutritional security will be defeated.
As you are aware, we are reeling under the worst food inflation in the last three decades and are dismayed at your Government’s refusal to bring down prices. At such a time this bill makes a further mockery of growing hunger and malnutrition.

We are perturbed by the fact that the announcement of an inadequate and exclusionary PDS entitlement by the EGoM happened just when the Justice Wadhwa Committee report, which talks of an expansion of the PDS entitlement, was submitted to the Supreme Court. The timing chosen by the EGoM seems to be an attempt to sabotage the Supreme Court proceedings in the right to food case.

The multiple legal entitlements guaranteed by the Supreme Court of India already grant the right of 35kgs of food grains per household along with other entitlements such as reduced prices for the PDS grain under Antyodaya Anna Yojana for vulnerable sections of society, supplementary nutrition for infants and young children under ICDS, maternity entitlements under NMBS and Janini Suraksha Yojana, school mid-day meals, old age pensions and addressing needs of the homeless and urban poor, street children, single women and infants under six months.

Sir, we cannot accept any legislation that reduce the entitlements of the people. We need to ensure universal coverage of all basic needs, an imperative that cannot be ignored by the Indian State.

We urge you to intervene immediately to ensure that the National Food Security Act creates multiple entitlements, as we have outlined above. The Act must also create an enabling environment for promoting food production by prioritising people’s control over productive resources including land, forests and water. No diversion of these resources must be allowed as large sections of the people of this country only survive on access to these natural resources.

We hope the legislation on food security would provide these guarantees.

With Regards,
Steering Committee of the Right to Food Campaign

Annie Raja (NFIW), Anuradha Talwar and Madhuri (NTUI), Arundhati Dhuru and Sandeep Pandey (NPMI), Ashok Bharti (NACDOR), Aruna Roy (NCPRI), Abhay Kumar (RTFC-Karnataka), Colin Gonsalves (HRLN), Harsh Mander (Aman Biradari), Jean Dreze, Kavita Srivastava (PUCL), Mira Shiva and Vandana Prasad (JSA), Nikhil Dey (MKSS), Paul Diwakar (NCDHR) and others

ALERTS

NTUI WORKSHOP ON REVIEW OF ECONOMY
When: 9-10 April 2010
Where: Rajendra Bhavan, Delhi

RTFC HUNGER STRIKE FOR NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY ACT
When: 15-19 April 2010
Where: Jantar Mantar, Delhi

DEFOI DHARNA
When: 26 April 2010
Where: Jantar Mantar, Delhi

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