The Centre’s current food subsidy burden stands at roughly Rs 90,000 crores, which will shoot up to `1,10,000 crores if the proposed provisions of the Food Bill are implemented.
“We are expecting the ministry of rural development to wrap up their ongoing Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) by the first quarter of the next year by which we expect to get the parliamentary nod for the Food Bill also. Thus, we will be in a position to roll out the legal foodgrain entitlement effectively based on fresh data on economic deprivation,” said a senior official.
The Centre is looking ahead at the outcome of the SECC to resolve the contentious issue of arriving at the number of people below poverty line (BPL).
The state governments claim to have far more people under the BPL category, while the Centre accuses them of inflating their numbers due to political reasons.