Jean Dreze writes in The Indian Express: Everyone knows that the country has large food stocks, and that some of this could be used to protect people from hunger during the coronavirus crisis. The enormity of the situation, however, has escaped many observers. [...] Last year, in June (when the stocks normally peak), foodgrain stocks crossed 80 million tonnes — more than three times the buffer-stock norms. This year, they have reached a staggering 77 million tonnes in March, before the rabi harvest, when food stocks typically rise by another 20 million tonnes or so. Public food storage on this scale has never happened in India before. Meanwhile, the shadow of hunger looms large as the lockdown devastates people’s livelihoods. The finance minister did not do them a big favour by doubling PDS rations for the next three months — something like that was needed, in any case, to make space in FCI’s overflowing godowns for rabi procurement. A serious relief package would include releasing excess stocks to the states in large quantities.
Why is it proving so difficult? One reason has to do with food-subsidy accounting. The food subsidy essentially pays for the losses FCI makes when it buys at minimum support prices and sells at much lower PDS prices, and also the money spent on transportation and storage. As it happens, however, the food subsidy does not enter the central government’s accounts until stocks are released. That is why the finance minister had to budget Rs 40,000 crore in her relief package simply to release some excess food stocks into the PDS. In economic terms, releasing excess stocks is costless, and even saves money. But in accounting terms, it is expensive. This anomaly makes it harder to release food stocks: Credit-rating agencies watch the fiscal deficit, not the food economy.
[...]In short, food transfers are bound to play a big role in keeping poor people alive in the next few months. Food schemes such as the PDS and mid-day meals are in place in most villages, it is mainly a matter of reinforcing them. For this to happen, the central government must unlock the godowns and give plenty of food to the states. Never mind if the step takes the fiscal deficit a notch higher due to muddled accounting.Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian outlined five measures to secure fiscal space needed to address the economic crisis wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Govt begins mapping of migrant workers for relief measures
From Business Standard: The central government has begun one of the most comprehensive exercises to map migrant workers scattered across the country — in relief camps, on their employers’ premises, or in clusters where they reside. The government wants to create a database of millions of such workers to ascertain whether a relief package could be announced for the most affected segment of the workforce due to the national lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19), a senior labour and employment ministry official said. The Union home ministry and the labour ministry have asked state governments to coordinate with the chief labour commissioner’s (CLC’s) office to give a comprehensive data of all the migrant workers by April 11.
[...]According to the central government’s estimates, part of its response to a petition filed by activists Anjali Bhardwaj and Harsh Mander in the Supreme Court, around 1.03 million people are residing in relief camps. But this might be an underestimation because the information was not captured from all the shelter homes. Additionally, at least 1.5 million workers are being provided shelter by employers across the country.
[...]According to official estimates, 500,000-600,000 workers had to walk back home on foot because public transport was not available to them. They travelled miles on foot to reach their villages. Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are still living in shelter homes set up by various state governments in India, while the rest are under quarantine facility before they are allowed to meet their families.Migrant crisis in India:
- 0.5 to 0.6 million workers walked on foot to villages after lockdown
- 8.4 million were given food by government and NGOs
- 1.03 million are in relief camps or shelter homes
- 1.5 million given shelter or food by employers
- 22,567 shelter homes (Kerala accounts for 70% of them)
