The Government, through various schemes, has been trying to reduce poverty and income disparity in the country, but has failed to achieve this laudable objective. The poverty line would be closer to 70 per cent if the minimum expenditure factored in basic spending on education, health, safe drinking water, clothes, shelter, and consumer durables. 83 per cent of the people in the country could not spend Rs. 20 a day and half of them could not spend even Rs. 9. What is appalling is that 30 crore people earn the same as the richest 20 Indians and this is the level of disparity.

What about food security for the other sections of society? Is there any population policy and food policy? Do they match? The total food consumption of poor people is more than that of the rich. With such huge levels of poverty, we need food supply to expand. Our food output should have increased at a higher rate than population growth. But the opposite has happened. We had food self-sufficiency after the Green Revolution in the 1970s. But the Government’s apathy towards agriculture has reversed that. One important reason was the gradual decline in the availability of cultivable area, with agriculture losing out to urbanization and industrialization both in China and India. The case of China is different because its yields are greater for all the important crops.

As a result, our per capita food availability taking cereals and pulses together has declined. Rice availability has also fallen down. Agriculture is in crisis. The government has failed miserably to address it by revamping agriculture through infrastructural development and a second Green Revolution. Instead of holistic planning, the Government has resorted to food imports and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has paved the way. To protect its' domestic market, India had quantitative restrictions on as many as 2,400 items including agricultural products. Under the GATT-related agreement on agriculture, India lifted all restrictions in the six years since 1997. It has begun wheat imports since 2004, ranging from 5 to 20 lakh tons a year, at increasing prices.

But what about other food items? Indian supermarket shelves are full of imported foods. India’s commitment to the agricultural agreement has not given its 75 per cent farm-dependent people the level playing field in international trade since developed countries provide farmers with huge subsidies. Besides, there are dirty tariffs in the developed countries to close their markets to the developed world. The price of the basic food items have been four to five times up in the last five years. And with food crisis all over the world, the scenario is even going to be worse. It does not affect the rich in the manner it does to the poor. A person who has a limited income, say a laborer who is earning Rs. 50 every day how would he afford the rising prices of wheat, dals and other vegetables. This economic inequality is making very hard for the poor people to meet their ends. The government should do something in this regard rather than satisfying their personal interests for their vote bank.