The Union Cabinet, at its meeting here on Tuesday, will take up the National Food Security Bill, which seeks to make food entitlement a legal right for 75 per cent of the population in rural areas and 50 per cent in urban centres.
The Food Bill seeks an investment of `1.10 lakh crores in agriculture to make it sustainable, the food subsidy is expected to swell from the current `66,000 crores to `95,000 crores once the law is implemented.
The Food Bill, drafted largely on the recommendations of the Sonia Gand-hi-led NAC, seeks to cover 46 per cent of people in rural areas and 28 per cent in urban areas in the priority group — in which a person will get 7 kg of foodgrains each month. Those in a wider group will get 3 kg of foodgrains per month. People in the priority group will get rice at `3/kg, wheat at `2/ kg and millets at `1/kg, while those in the general group would have to pay 50 per cent of the minimum support price.