Courtsey
NDTV: Good evening and welcome to the NDTV dialogues. On this show there are no face offs, there are no political clashes but a conversation of ideas. Ideas that are essential for India. This week we look at food for all. Can it actually end hunger in our country? Does it not go far enough as some have said? Does it go way too far? Is this a cost India should welcome or is it a cost, which will damage India beyond repair? Joining me tonight are Sitaram Yechury, Abhishek Singhvi, Piyush Goyal and Dr Arvind Panagriya.
NDTV: Dr Singhvi the three main criticisms of this Bill are well known, but the focus really, and I think with the events this week especially of the rupee and how it has fallen, comes back to that issue. We can look into whether India cannot have it but lets look at real aspects of, if the economy, if the rupee is crashing, where you will find money from to fund the ambitious bill like this? Piyush Goyal says, "Look it won't be much more". But here are other views. You have heard Surjit Bhalla and others argue that it would be as high as 3% of the GDP"
Abhishek Singhvi: Sonia just step back for a moment. The first issue is the need, is there a need for it? I don't think anybody can deny that some form of food security in a formal consolidated legally entitled form should be there in this country and I think I largely agree with my friend Mr Piyush Goyal's point, that even assuming that it was mere consolidation, which it is not, it is something more than that. But a large part of this initiative is consolidation, that itself is a sufficient virtue by itself, because to tie up innumerable programmes into one Act. Secondly, for the first time ever to give a legal right to demand it, to go to a redressal officer, to go and appeal to a district officer, to go to a magistrate, to have a food allowance where you can't get food, to have a penalty, to have a fine, to have other coercive steps is a huge change in mindset, so I think the need you have to then consider whether you at all need it. Secondly there's huge number of contradictions on some of the criticism. He very rightly said, that it is largely a consolidation, the Finance Minister has done the math census 10,000, the real maths is about 23,800 crores because 125, 1 lakh 25 crores, 1 lakh 25 thousand crores will involve an additional expenditure of 23,800 crores.
Arvind Panagariya: No, no, no. The point is that this is the difficulty, this is the difficulty, you can keep expanding the programmes. Ultimately it is the responsibility of the party in power to be careful before they put these subsidies, these programmes on the table. Once you put them on the table, no political party has the guts to say that I am against food security. I am against right to education; I am against right to health; I am against right to such and such. Ultimately your resources are limited, somewhere you'll have to stop. But let me get to a few other things that have been said around this table, which I have very different views. First of all inequality; so Kerala in India is the most unequal state; Bihar is the most equal state. Where do you think people are migrating from and where to, from Bihar to Kerala and not from Kerala to Bihar. So to think that inequality is the worst problem, you got to worry about the levels of income and there is no such; Mr Yechury says that somehow more inequality means less growth. That's simply not true. Actually the richer can get, it can go either way, it can go either way, but there is no clear, strong relationship economically one or the other way. But I can point to you, you know, you got America which is the richest country, one of the richest countries anyway, it is highly unequal, much more unequal than India is
NDTV: Good evening and welcome to the NDTV dialogues. On this show there are no face offs, there are no political clashes but a conversation of ideas. Ideas that are essential for India. This week we look at food for all. Can it actually end hunger in our country? Does it not go far enough as some have said? Does it go way too far? Is this a cost India should welcome or is it a cost, which will damage India beyond repair? Joining me tonight are Sitaram Yechury, Abhishek Singhvi, Piyush Goyal and Dr Arvind Panagriya.
NDTV: Dr Singhvi the three main criticisms of this Bill are well known, but the focus really, and I think with the events this week especially of the rupee and how it has fallen, comes back to that issue. We can look into whether India cannot have it but lets look at real aspects of, if the economy, if the rupee is crashing, where you will find money from to fund the ambitious bill like this? Piyush Goyal says, "Look it won't be much more". But here are other views. You have heard Surjit Bhalla and others argue that it would be as high as 3% of the GDP"
Abhishek Singhvi: Sonia just step back for a moment. The first issue is the need, is there a need for it? I don't think anybody can deny that some form of food security in a formal consolidated legally entitled form should be there in this country and I think I largely agree with my friend Mr Piyush Goyal's point, that even assuming that it was mere consolidation, which it is not, it is something more than that. But a large part of this initiative is consolidation, that itself is a sufficient virtue by itself, because to tie up innumerable programmes into one Act. Secondly, for the first time ever to give a legal right to demand it, to go to a redressal officer, to go and appeal to a district officer, to go to a magistrate, to have a food allowance where you can't get food, to have a penalty, to have a fine, to have other coercive steps is a huge change in mindset, so I think the need you have to then consider whether you at all need it. Secondly there's huge number of contradictions on some of the criticism. He very rightly said, that it is largely a consolidation, the Finance Minister has done the math census 10,000, the real maths is about 23,800 crores because 125, 1 lakh 25 crores, 1 lakh 25 thousand crores will involve an additional expenditure of 23,800 crores.
Arvind Panagariya: No, no, no. The point is that this is the difficulty, this is the difficulty, you can keep expanding the programmes. Ultimately it is the responsibility of the party in power to be careful before they put these subsidies, these programmes on the table. Once you put them on the table, no political party has the guts to say that I am against food security. I am against right to education; I am against right to health; I am against right to such and such. Ultimately your resources are limited, somewhere you'll have to stop. But let me get to a few other things that have been said around this table, which I have very different views. First of all inequality; so Kerala in India is the most unequal state; Bihar is the most equal state. Where do you think people are migrating from and where to, from Bihar to Kerala and not from Kerala to Bihar. So to think that inequality is the worst problem, you got to worry about the levels of income and there is no such; Mr Yechury says that somehow more inequality means less growth. That's simply not true. Actually the richer can get, it can go either way, it can go either way, but there is no clear, strong relationship economically one or the other way. But I can point to you, you know, you got America which is the richest country, one of the richest countries anyway, it is highly unequal, much more unequal than India is
