- Email: [email protected]
Implementation of food distribution policies
Implementation of food distribution policies A case study in South India
Barbara Harriss
Public policy for foodgrains distribution and consumption in Colmbatore District of south India involvea prowasing through state institu&ns, and trading distrfbutlon through fair price Food for Work and shops, Employment Guamntew MIames. Policies are evaluated in terms of their objsctives, and institutions fortheimpkmenMonofpolkyare analysed in terms of the way in which they mobilize and distribute resources: foodgiains, capital and Although this deficit labour. district has captured shares of Tamll Nedu Sate’s publicly distributed gmin which are disproportknate to its share of the state’s ‘vulnerable’ population, neverthekss, schemes to increase the latter’s foodgmin consumption have-potchilyioverspaceandtime,andtheyhavs had little meaaur#He Impact on intendedbenefkiaries. Keywords: Foodgmins; Kind payment
schemes; Public distribution TheauthorisaResearchFelbwinthe Nutrition Polii Unit, Deparbnent ol Human Nutritbn, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Msdiine, Keppel Street, LondonWC1 E 7ET, UK (Tel: 01-636 6636).
Any public intervention consists of a modification of the mobilization and/or distribution of resources. By intervening in the markets of the food economy, a government may thus change the ways in which resources are allocated within the food marketing system. It may change the prices acting as signals from some or all consumers to some or all commercialized producers. A goverment may therefore either alternatively or simultaneously change the rate and direction of extraction of resources from agriculture via the private marketing system. By such interventions, the state also provides an arena of action, an arena which in turn interacts with, and reflects the actions of, a wider polity. Here, a case study is presented of the implementation of public policy for foodgrains distribution and consumption in Coimbatore District in South India. Since it is not possible to divorce public policies affecting consumption from those affecting the acquisition on the part of the state of commodities for consumption, the record of implementation of state trading policies for rice with reference to South India is first considered.
Implemented
interventions in state tracing in food
The partial socialization of trade changes the distribution of physical resources. In the early 1!27Os,government procurement of rice at prices lower than those on the free market in many regions of India resulted in compensating distortions to this market such that all rural and urban people dependent on the market for supplies of rice in surplus producing regions subsidized the target groups eligible for the ‘fair price’ rice of the public distribution system. The target groups comprised a limited number of low income people in cities, certain deficit states such as West Bengal and Kerala, and the deficit districts on state borders.
Commodities Both the central government’s Food Corporation of India (FCI) and civil supplies corporations of individual states have found it necessary to diversify, as devices to increase their turnover in order to reap economies of scale and to reduce trading risks. In the late 1970s the acquisition from procurement and imports of a large buffer stock of foodgrains led to a 121
Implementation of food distribution policies
withdrawal from intervention in procurement. It has also led to the distribution of fair price commodities to concentrations of government servants and to captive markets such as the army, police, hospitals and prisons; and the distribution of a limited quantity as kind payment for routine repair work done on behalf of local government institutions, during times of peak agricultural demand for agricultural labour. l Technology The partial socialization of trade leads to a significant change in technology in the direction of large size and capacity in both storage and processing. The lack of viability of such technology except at high capacity utilization has led to attempts to develop much more highly centralized distribution systems, to subsidies, and most importantly to the perpetuation of institutional links with private trade, the latter which controls lower costs and more versatile technologies. Finance The partial socialization of trade has changed the mobilization of financial resources. Paradoxically both state and central government trading corporations emphasize the commercial base to their operations in their annual reports. Meanwhile the civil supplies corporations indulge in internal cross-subsidization between profit and loss making trade and require intermittent bailing-out from the state governments’ general revenues. FCI by contrast now needs Rs 10 per individual in India in subsidy from central government revenues. Even the reforms mooted for Food For Work and Employment Guarantee schemes require resources from general funds to cover an increase in technical personnel administering the kind payment schemes. FCI has failed in its one clearly financial objective: to be a source of credit for farmers. Both FCI and the civil supplies corporations have been destinations of credit from international financial institutions notably the World Bank via the Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation for investment in physical infrastructure. But state trading is not profitable for the state. Its circumscription by other financial, trading, infrastructural and policy making institutions of central and state governments is used to justify patterns of operation requiring subsidy.
Beneficiaries
‘Barbara Ha&s, State and Market:The political Eccncmy of Exchange in a Dryland Regkm of south India, Concept
Pbkhing,
New Delhi, 1983, Chaps 4, 8
and 9. 2K.Subbarac, Rice Madt&ng System and Co~~ulso~ Levies, InetiMe of Economic Growth,Delhi,1978. 122
of state trading
That state trading is perpetuated is indicative that a number of interests are served by its perpetuation. First, the FCI does not harm the interests of powerful surplus producers of wheat and rice in North India where its procurement prices exceed market ones. Elsewhere, since procurement at low prices directly from producers is easily and massively evaded,2 the interests of large surplus producers are not materially threatened. Second, the relationship between private food merchants and the food parastatals is profoundly ambiguous. On the one hand coercion and conflict are characteristic. Movement restrictions cut off supplies and f orce merchant-millers into speculative passivity as agents of the state. Powerful merchants can criminally syphon resources out of public distribution and into the risky and highly profitable black market resulting from movement restrictions. The legitimate need of the state to be vigilant against such activity can turn into rank oppression of private merchants on occasion. FOOD POLICYMay 1983
Implementation of food distribution policies
Yet, on the other hand, collaboration with the state may not be against private mercantile interests. The existence of markets distorted by the states provides opportunities for illegal excess profit making through black marketing. Acute market irnxzrfections may allow the spawning of large numbers of petty dealers smuggling profitably across the trading cordons.4 Furthermore, the state needs private merchants, who mediate in the management of labour, whose technology operates at lower costs than that in the control of the state, and who reduce the fixed cost component of state trading operations by the expedient of their intermittent co-option. In turn this relationship allows contract millers to trade and process freely whenever food distribution policies are liberalized. Third, international interests are served by these institutions being a market for technology and for credit underwritten by the Indian state (by means of paid-up capital, direct and indirect subsidies). The rapidly growing institutions and programmes of central govemment which independently circumscribe state trading are used to justify high levels of subsidy. State trading involves a continual reinvesting in purely mercantile activities. These tend to promote monopolies which thwart investment in the expansion of commodity production on which both the private and state mercantile sector depend for their further appropriation of resources.
Implemented interventions in food distribution and consumption State trading has rarely involved a regular release of supplies onto the open market to contain retail prices below specified ceilings. It has generally functioned as a relief or welfare system via a separate network of Fair Price Shops (FPS), whose supplies, until recently at least, were dominated by imported wheat. The creation of a separate ‘fair price’ 3H.S. Aulakh and A.S. Kahlon, ‘The role of network leads to the evolution of a multiple pricing system. The high zonal wlii in creatingan imperfectma&et retail prices of the black market and the residual market (in districts stru&re’, -Indian Joimal of Agricuftural where procurement is coerced) puts pressure on ‘fair price’ retailers to Economics. Vol33. No 1.1978. w 59-87. reduce the difference between the markets, and then to pocket it. 4Bakwa Harri.s.s,tiaddy’and di& Marketing in Northern Tamil Nadu, Sangam The record for the Fair Price Shop system is as follows: Publiihing Companyfor Madras Instituteof Development Studii, Madras, 1979; S.S. Siiakumar, ‘Aspects of agartan ecunomy in Tamil Nadu: A study of two villages’, Economic and Political Weekly, Voll3, No 20,8 May 1978. %ee studies for Uttar Pradssh, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka respectively as fotbws: V.B. Sirgh, An Evaluation of Faii Price Shops, Oxford IBH Pub Ho, Delhi, 1973; P.S. George, Public Disbib&km of Foodgrains in Kemla: Income Distribution, lmplicatlons and Effectiveness, Reeearch Report No 7, International
Institute, Polii Research Food Washington, DC, 1979; S&barao, OP tit, Ref 2; k Subbarao, ‘What is a “SGplus State”?: An anaM& of the wblii diibution’, A&a tignana, i&l; and B. Harks, Coarse Grains, Coarse Interventions, Twenty-First Century Publishing Trust, New Delhi, 1983.
FOOD POLICVMay1983
l
a 0 0
The uptake of publicly distributed foodgrains is variable, depending on local production and on the relationship between controlled ‘fair’ prices and uncontrolled black or residual market prices. Consumers face problems of lack of physical access to state trading outlets, of adulteration, and poor quality of grain and, at times, of corruption and black marketing. Generally, however, it is supply rather than demand which is the key constraint on fair price sales. Even though low income groups in urban areas undoubtedly benefit from FPS, those of rural areas are rarely covered by the network. Rural people dependent on markets for food may even subsidize it themselves by virtue of their paying prices for grain inclusive of a hoist which compensates food traders for the losses made by compulsory levies to state trading agencies at fixed prices lower than market ones.5
Implementation
of food dism’bution policies
Public distribution
of food: a case study
Coimbatore District is a deficit region for foodgrains, sensitively located on a state border and a focal entrep& in the private, inter-regional foodgrains distribution system. A major activity of the state Civil Supplies Corporation here, besides the storage and processing of rice, is therefore the final distribution of essential commodities through the system of Fair Price Shops. There are 665 in the district as a whole consisting of 134 urban retail cooperatives and 457 rural cooperatives, 35 Civil Supplies Corporation stores in Coimbatore City, and 11 such stores in rural areas, 28 private shops and ‘private cooperatives’ run by the managements of large textiles and engineering factories for their workers. The District Supply Office budgets the supply of the commodity sold in the shops and it is the responsibility of the Civil Supplies Corporation to get goods moved from its storage points to the retail outlets, a service for which it is paid by the cooperatives and private merchants. Finance is coordinated by the State Bank of India. Marketing arrangements for foodgrains under the Fair Price shop system may vary from complete non-market distribution with quantities and prices fixed to sales at open market prices but with rationed quantities, or, as with cereals over the last 2Y2 years, sales at fixed ‘fair’ prices and (with ‘rationing’ at up to 24 kgs per purchase) almost unlimited quantities. Even though issue prices are low the distributive margin is quite large (from 43% for super fine rice to 31% for coarse rice). However, it is not as wide as in the public distribution system of Kamataka (47% for fine rice and 42% for coarse rice) or in FCI’s distribution system. Lack of effective rationing leads to offtake in inverse proportions to local harvest sixes. In 1977, with short local supplies of grain, 53 451 tonnes of cereals were disbursed through the public distribution system enough to provide each cardholder with 74 kgs of rice and wheat. But in 1978, 9.2 kgs per cardholder were sold and in 1979, 19 kgs (Table 1). Furthermore, these latter quantities cannot influence market prices. No coarse grains, which are the foodgrains eaten by low income groups in the district, have been sold. Our case study focuses on one taluk within the district. Avanashi Taluk betrays its deficit status as a cereals producer by the fact that it accounts for 7% of Coimbatore District’s ration cards but 16% of its publicly distributed rice. In Avanashi Taluk there are 48 Fair Price shops. The 7 shops located in urban areas accounted for 30% of the total turnover in
JmuarY February March x; June
July August September Source: Notee on Civil supplies, Cdmbatore Diirict, Tamil Nadu State Ciil Supplii Corporation, Coimbatore, 25.560.
124
r& mt,er
3724 :z 2053 4342 3525 4146 4707 4646 4413
1970
1979
1900
lgT7
1976
1979
2371 327 359 349 209 E
323 266 197 317 356 769 1193
292 191 207 99 102
-
473 266 263 221 284 154 216 102 89 193 196 76
163 46
z: 1629
722 746 1216 914 654 1615 659 1106 990 1040
443 502 309 622 444
E
z
G z 54 52 13 104 102 56
FOOD POLICYMay 1983
Implementatitm of food distribution poliaies Tebte2TumovuofFPS1979-69(~7~) in Avanuhl Tel&. Turnover (Rs’ow)
K
f=JL
o-9.9 10-19.9 2049.9 30439.9 40-49.9 5049.9 6049.9 70-79.9 6569.9 90-99.9 100-149.9
6 12 9 5 3 :
150-249.9 200-249.9 Note: Mean - Rs40000; Mode-Rs15ooo.
; -
: 19 10 6 6 6 6 4 -
1
; Medii
- R325000;
Source: Tehsilder, Avenashi Taluk, July 1960.
1979/80. Two of the outlets are owned by the Civil Supplies Corporation while the rest are cooperatives. The two Civil Supplies Corporation’s outlets comprise 12% of total turnover in the taluk. A total of 48 405 cardholders are eligible to use the stores - 1008 per store on average. This is half the constituency of the average shop in the state as a whole, and identifies this rural region as one of the most intensely and unusually well-provided in Tarnil Nadu. Table 2 shows the size distribution of shops in AvanashiTaluk over the period January 1979 to May 1980. Distribution is strongly skewed, the total turnover of the biggest firm being equal to that of the bottom 35% of firms. Nevertheless in terms of the value of turnover this largest firm is two-thirds of the average size of private firms for the state as a whole.‘j The retail outlets of the Fair Price shop system are very small shops. The Fair Price shop requires a monthly turnover of Rs 4500 at 1979-80 prices (Rs 54 000 per year) in order for it to be privately viable. The average turnover in Avanashi Taluk is Rs 28 000, about half of the viable turnover. In these petty sales, cereals form a minor component in comparison with sales of sugar and kerosene. Over the 17 months from January 1979 - May 1980 only 228.4 tonnes of rice and 47.7 tonnes of wheat were sold through the Fair Price shop system in Avanashi Taluk enough for 4 kgs of rice and 1 kg of wheat per cardholder per year. This is one week’s calories at FAO norms of 2400 a day. Foodgrains were distributed unequally. Ninety four per cent of rice and 30% of wheat went to the urban clients of just four stores. The remaining rural stores sold an average of two quintals of rice and five quintals of wheat a year: a single bullock cart load. The 48 stores employ 133 people, 2.8 for the average store. In 1979 the annual turnover per person was just Rs 10 200. In the state as a whole each shop receives an annual subsidy of Rs 2400, roughly enough to cover the low labour costs - Rs 100 per person per month in the smaller shops. It is doubtful that the turnover increases in drought years will compensate in the long term for indifferent performance meanwhile. Thus the Fair Price Shop system must be justified on welfare grounds. However, such a justification is not obvious when the inventories of such stores are inappropriate for the needs of the poorest, when the packaging of commodities is in excessively large units for them, when sales are for cash, not credit, and when quality is often low and supplies not always dependable. In Avanashi Taluk in years of normal production the system operates with a bias to the needs of the cardholding urban population.
Kind payment schemes While the public distribution system distributes resources mainly to urban areas, the increase of landless and the massive increase of landless women and children going into the rural workforce (60.5% and 78% increases respectively between 1964/5 and 1974/5)* testify to increasing rural distress. The acquisition of sizeable buffer stocks in public control has enabled the central and state governments to justify the distribution WnDublii data from Tamil Nadu State of rice as kind uavments. Two schemes were introduced: Food for Work _ _ timeroial. Taxes DeparbnentpWional and Employment Guarantees. Office. Coimbatw. 1979.
Tamii
Nadu
Corporation
*K.N.
State Civil Supplii
data in Hindu, 7 April 1980.
Food for Work
Raj,
‘peasanb and potatoes’p Food for Work was inaugurated by the Government Mainstream, Vol19, No 23,1991, pp 4-6,
40. FOOD POLICYMay 1983
of India in 1977 with
three objectives:
125
Implementation
of food distribution policies
0 0 0
9Govemment of India, Economic Survey 7979-80, New Delhi, 1960. loHindu, 10 June 1960; Hindu, 23 November 1960. I’M. Balaji and V.K. Ramachandran, A Report on the Implementation of the Food for Work Ptv9ramme and the Empbyment Guarantee System in Ramanathapuram and Dhannaputi Disbicts, Madras Institute
of Development Stud& Madras, 1960, mimeo. l*K. Basu, ‘Food for Work Progammes: Beyond roads that 9et washed away’, Economic and Politicai Week/v. Vol 16. Nos l-2,3-10 January 1961. e 13Govemmentof India, Food for work Pmramme: A Guideline. Ministrvof Aaricult&e arKI lrri@on, m of Rural Development, New Delhi, 1976. ‘4Govemment of India, A Quick Evaluation oftf7eFcodbfWorkFmgamme: An Intetfm Report, Programme Evaluation Chganis-
ation, Planning Commission, New Delhi, 1960. ‘5V.M. Dandekar and M. Sathe, ‘Employment Guarantee Scheme and Food for Work Programme’,Economicand Po/itica/ Weekfy, Vol15,12 April 1960. 16Hindu, 12 May 1960.
126
To generate additional gainful employment. To create durable assets. To use surplus foodgrains to develop human resources.
Fifty to one hundred per cent of wages were to be in kind. In 1978/9 in the country as a whole 286.4 million man days of work were provided and 2.5 million tonnes of foodgrains were distributed.9 The project has now been incorporated into India’s Basic Needs Strategy. In Tamil Nadu the scheme went into operation in April 1979, work projects being sanctioned by the Panchayat Union Commissioners and actually inspired by local contractors and landlords. Rice for payment is drawn on the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation and replaced by supplies from the central government buffer in the possession of the FCI. The central government allocated 73 000 tonnes to Tamil Nadu for 1979. This would provide all year round food for 50 000 people at 4 kgs per day. The central government allocated 27 000 tonnes for 1980/l (work all year round for 18 500 people). Even so the central government claimed that, ‘liberal releases through the public distribution system and Food for Work programme have prevented an increase in urban market prices for fine cereals’, and with reference to a State with a population of over 50 million. lo Balaji and Ramachandran studied the implication of this programme so far in two drought-prone districts of Tamil Nadu. l1 While it represents a considerable increase in potential funds for expenditure on public works, it provided highly inadequate employment for agricultural labour in the first year of operation; between 2.6 and 4.6 man days, least in the most backward areas and maldistributed through time to coincide with peak demand for agricultural labour and with the rainy season. There was no effect on wages and workers were paid below the Tamil Nadu State statutory minimum. The work has rarely enhanced assets. It comprises petty maintenance, often left incomplete. No financial allotment for materials needed in rural works has been included. Basu12 in a separate study, has pointed out that if kind payment schemes are simply substituting for pruned routine activities then the net employment generated may be far less than what is implied in statements on man days of work supplied under the programme. Furthermore, payment in grain in Tamil Nadu amounted to ll-14% of the total payment for work done. Grain received was 28-37% short of entitlement. Irregular supplies led to late payment and the employment of contractors, contrary to central government guidelines.‘3 A Planning Commission evaluation covering 80 villages in 10 states in 1980 confirmed the general nature of the specific observations here including the retrogressive role of contractors, who manipulated muster rolls, sold rice in open market, and paid labour lower cash rates.14 Dandekar and Sathe15 found that 90% of the beneficiaries in Maharashtra continued to be below the poverty line. Finally, in the case of Tamil Nadu, the rice from the Civil Supplies Corporation was of such poor quality that it was almost inedible, some over five years old. This brought work to a halt in Tinmelveli District too.16 Panchayat Unions were not allowed to take fine rice and to pay Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation the difference, nor were workers allowed rugi instead. It is a paradox of this programme that Coimbatore District, one of the richest and most industrialized of the state, should have cornered 30% of the entire state’s allocation to this programme in 1979 its first year of FOOD POLICYMay 1983
Implementation of food distributionpolicies
operation.17 In the year ending April 1980 the District Development Department’s own evaluation recorded that 1675 tonnes of foodgrains had been used, that Rs 1 118 611 had been disbursed and that employment had been given to 12 708 men and 8065 women. For these people this amounted to 27 days’ rice at 3 kgs a day plus Rs 53.8 in cash, such that the programme’s impact is of higher significance than in Ramnad or Dharmapuri. Nevertheless, for the district as a whole it amounts to about six days employment per head of estimated rural population. Of the 1458 works started, only 569 had been completed within the first 12 months. The utilization of the allotted rice for the district amounted to 70% by July 1980. The durable assets created were repairs to public buildings such as maternity centres, schools, rural stores, tree planting and soil conservation, and repairing irrigation tanks and channels.ls In the second year of operation the district’s plan was less ambitious, calling for 595 projects, 1590 tonnes or rices and Rs 7.16 lukhs of money. The seven blocks or panchayat unions comprising our study region have made up 55% of the entire district’s Food for Work schemes, 54% of its finance and 60% of the district’s rice allocation to Food for Work. Table 3 summarizes achievements under Food for Work in its first twelve months of operation. Our region may be subdivided into two types of subregion, blocks which implemented the programme and blocks where implementation was weak. Three blocks, Annur, Avanashi and Sultanpet, account for 80% of the region’s total programme finance, 90% of its rice and 90% of its schemes. Thirteen per cent of the allocation to Wnpublished data from Tsmil Nadu Civil the entire state went to these three blocks. Thus, although Coimbatore yi!is Corporation, dated 28 September District provided slightly more work and rice under the Food for Work scheme than districts such as Ramnad and Dhamapuri, the programme’s Wnpublished data from Coimbators has been extremely patchy in a spatial sense. I shall District Developmsnt Office, Colhxtofate, implementation evaluate it, as others have done, in terms of its stated objectives. Coimbatore, 1980.
Avmlashl Total numberof projects Road repairs NlHlerOfprojects ;~$=W&a~)
Sulur
91
131
36
Average cc& (Rs ‘000)
102 262.6 36 2.0
77 242.5 52 3.2
23 92.5 69 4.0
schoolrapaira Number of pmjecta Total coat (Ra ‘000) %oftotaiforFFW Average coat (Rs ‘000)
27 247.0 32 9.2
9 116.1 25 12.9
7 13.9 11 1.9
lntgation Number of projecta Total cost (Ra ‘000) %oftotaiforFFW Average coat (Rs‘000)
17 233.1 30 13.7
5 104.0
othena Number of pmjecta T@~t-yoJ Average coat (Ra ‘000) Percentage of totalfinancialcunponant Ftke oJmponent Albtted (tonnea) Diatributed(tonnes) Distributedaa % of totalalbtted
3 19.5 2.0 6.5
30 94.6 70 3.2
3i.O
30 13
6 66.5 70 14.6
37 294.6 43 7.9
31 146.3 67 4.7
2 25.6 20 12.6
17 110.6 16 6.5
5 21.0 12.5 4.2
-
2.6 1 11.6 10 11.6
-
32
19
369 342 93
566 497 66
5 47 47 100
65 16 25
nd 12.5 MI
21 244.0 41 11.6 26 99 52 52
nfrastructure,3aheda, repairsto6panchayatunionbuikUn@s,repaira Note:alndudes2children’snurseries,2agriadhrralstores, 5ra9ai1sb~pwtodkmaticeti toabuaatandandamoaqua,andtheaxWudkndadii.
FOODPOLKiVMay1983
127
Implementation of food distributionpolicies
‘9Andy Rutherford, cation, 1981.
Personal
communi-
As regards the durability of assets created, the great majority of schemes were routine and mostly petty repairs. Fifty per cent of Food for Work resources were invoked for roads and highway maintenance and one-quarter went to schools. Among the three implementing blocks, only 43% of resources went to roads and 24% to schools. In these blocks a third of resources went to infrastructural schemes such as tanks, canals and wells, and assets such as Panchayat Union buildings and nurseries, agricultural stores, a dispensary, a bus-stand and facilities for a weekly market; the latter two alone might be used by those who built or repaired them. By contrast roadworks accounted for 80% of Food for Work resources and the remainder went to schools in the four blocks which were poor implementers. The materials allowances for road repairs were inadequate. In using free mud for repairing tarmac roads, Food for Work workers were not creating durable assets. They were, however, ensuring for themselves the need for more repair work after the next rains. It is known that, contrary to central government guidelines, labour contractors have been used in Avanashi taluk. They respond to pressure from transport contractors eager to establish bus routes and the location of Food for Work projects may be affected by them. The Government of India stipulated that between 50 and 100% of the resources allocated should comprise kind payment in grain. In our seven blocks this amounted to 40%: 43% in implementing blocks and 27% in non-implementing blocks. The latter is still twice as great as the maximum proportion of rice in Ramnad and Dhamapuri Districts. Furthermore, while 55% of the rice allocated was actually paid out in non-implementing blocks, 86% was distributed in implementing blocks. The meaning of these statistics is qualified by cases of refusal of mouldy rice from stocks of over two years old. Workers were prepared to accept wages lower than those stipulated provided payment was in cash. Poor quality Food for Work rice was then sold to merchants who double boiled it and wholesaled it in Kerala. l9 On the creation of gainful employment, I could not obtain block-wise data on actual numbers employed.. It is clear, however, from data on financial and kind resources, that employment was enormously concentrated in the three implementing blocks and only these could have had any impact on wage rates or work for agricultural labourers. Table 4 gives the distributions through time of rice in the first year of operation. That of implementing blocks is more evenly distributed than Tsbls 4. Dlblocks In coknklors
0frkaundsrFoodforWorkmdEmpkymentGusmtssScbsmss~n7 Dhblct, 1979f00. TzzFg Total mnnes
July 1979
August September
October NoWmbef December January 1960 February
Note: aAnnur, Avanaehi, ~uftanpet; bsulur, Palladam, ~Nfw. km@Ur did ti windy monthlydata. Source: Original data from Panchayal Unions.
+T JUne
July
%
Total tonnes
%
5.7
0.6
2.3
2.1
12.6 61.2 114.6 176.1 94.3 14.2 149.6 54.6 22.6 31.9 131
1.4 6.6 12.6 19.9 10.5 1.6 16.7 6.1 2.5 3.5 14.7
3.6 19.4 11.4 21.3 37.5 2.6 3.6 0.5 2.9 na na
3.3 17.9 10.5 19.7 34.7 2.6 3.5 0.5 2.6
20.3
2.2
2.7
2.5
FOOD POLICY May 1983
Implementation of food distribution policies
that of poor implementers, though for both the months October to January are the months of peak activity. These are also peak times for demand for agricultural labour and coincide with the North East Monsoon. Therefore, Food for Work competes for agricultural labour. It does not complement it in the off-season. Employment Guurantee Scheme In September 1979 a second food distribution scheme went into operation. The Employment Guarantee Scheme had as its objective the creation of employment and skills for the unemployed to make them self-employed in due course. Employment is guaranteed within 30 days to those able-bodied people over 18 who are not beneficiaries of rural development, small farmer or drought prone area development projects and who have registered as unemployed. If no employment is found within that period a dole of Rs 1 per day paid in rice at Rs 1.50 per kg is provided. For those given work, payment is Rs 6 a day in rice (4 kgs). The study of Ramnad and Dharmapuri districts showed that no funds were allowed under the scheme for labour, compared with a materials component of Rs 1 lakh per Panchayat Union. Employment exchanges had not been established, employment had not been given nor had the doles. The schemes simply did not exist.20 Tamil Nadu State’s allocation of Rs 4 crores (compared with Kamataka’s allocation of Rs 30 crores)z* represents about ll/z days employment for all agricultural labour. An attempt to implement the scheme has been made in Coimbatore District. Of the 28 721 registered unemployed by July 1980, 55% had been given work, though the District Development Officer acknowledged that, as with Food for Work, jobs had been provided in the peak agricultural season. Projects planned under the Employment Guarantee scheme for 1980/81 totalled 766 at a cost of Rs 7.4 million and necessitating 2343 tonnes of rice. The Employment Guarantee scheme is therefore a larger scheme here than is Food for Work. The case study region of seven blocks is far less prominent a sink for investment under the Employment Guarantee scheme than it is under the Food for Work scheme, comprising 31% of the projects under employment guarantee, 25% of money costs, and 32% of rice. As with Food for Work there are contrasts between the same implementing and nonimplementing blocks. The three implementing blocks comer 60% of projects in this region, 70% of finance, and 80% of the rice. Table 5 gives details of progress during the first year. Employment has been provided only for road repairs, including some larger projects in the implementing blocks but dominated by petty maintenance in non-implementing blocks. Road mending is the only ‘skill’ for which ‘training’ is provided. This is hardly a job in which one can become ‘self-employed in future’. However, it is clear that considerable menial employment was provided in certain places - 70 000 man days in Avanashi, an implementing block contrasted with 6400 man days in Pongalur, a poor implementer. These kind payment schemes are to be expanded since it is stated by the Government of India that they have ‘potential to become a focal programme for the generation of rural employment in the coming years’.22 Suggested reforms to these kind payment schemes imply an increase in 2oM.Balaliandv.K. R~achand~,cPcit, the state bureaucracy. The central government, having renamed them Ref 11. the National Rural Employment Programme, has advised state 21Hindu, 3 November 1980. to appoint technical personnel at block level to supervise 2*Govemmentof India,op cit. Ref 14, p 11. governments FOOD POLICYMay 1983
129
Implementation
of food distribution policies
projects, to appoint field officers to monitor schemes and to create a new agency to be responsible for the delivery of foodgrains from FCI and civil supplies corporation stores to work sites. Private contractors could then be banned. But there is little to indicate the removal or alleviation of constraints like finance. Hence the kind payment schemes may be expected to continue to be of little importance even as welfare measures except in small pockets.
Conclusion The public distribution of foodgrains provides (subsidized) employment for government shopkeepers and reduces the financial burden, to central and state governments, of large buffer stocks. It has been claimed that such schemes are at best the application of a disguised famine code, enabling the survival and reproduction of those with nothing but their labour power but without any attempt to transform agrarian production relations. It is claimed that this subsidizes the production of the labour force available to landlords and to capitalist farmers, though it is the poor rather than the landlords who become dependent on the emerging ‘welfare state’. Evidence shows that even in pockets where the scheme has been ‘intensively’ implemented, it has had none of the impact necessary for this type of explanation to have force.
130
FOOD POLICY May 1963
Barbara Harriss
Public policy for foodgrains distribution and consumption in Colmbatore District of south India involvea prowasing through state institu&ns, and trading distrfbutlon through fair price Food for Work and shops, Employment Guamntew MIames. Policies are evaluated in terms of their objsctives, and institutions fortheimpkmenMonofpolkyare analysed in terms of the way in which they mobilize and distribute resources: foodgiains, capital and Although this deficit labour. district has captured shares of Tamll Nedu Sate’s publicly distributed gmin which are disproportknate to its share of the state’s ‘vulnerable’ population, neverthekss, schemes to increase the latter’s foodgmin consumption have-potchilyioverspaceandtime,andtheyhavs had little meaaur#He Impact on intendedbenefkiaries. Keywords: Foodgmins; Kind payment
schemes; Public distribution TheauthorisaResearchFelbwinthe Nutrition Polii Unit, Deparbnent ol Human Nutritbn, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Msdiine, Keppel Street, LondonWC1 E 7ET, UK (Tel: 01-636 6636).
Any public intervention consists of a modification of the mobilization and/or distribution of resources. By intervening in the markets of the food economy, a government may thus change the ways in which resources are allocated within the food marketing system. It may change the prices acting as signals from some or all consumers to some or all commercialized producers. A goverment may therefore either alternatively or simultaneously change the rate and direction of extraction of resources from agriculture via the private marketing system. By such interventions, the state also provides an arena of action, an arena which in turn interacts with, and reflects the actions of, a wider polity. Here, a case study is presented of the implementation of public policy for foodgrains distribution and consumption in Coimbatore District in South India. Since it is not possible to divorce public policies affecting consumption from those affecting the acquisition on the part of the state of commodities for consumption, the record of implementation of state trading policies for rice with reference to South India is first considered.
Implemented
interventions in state tracing in food
The partial socialization of trade changes the distribution of physical resources. In the early 1!27Os,government procurement of rice at prices lower than those on the free market in many regions of India resulted in compensating distortions to this market such that all rural and urban people dependent on the market for supplies of rice in surplus producing regions subsidized the target groups eligible for the ‘fair price’ rice of the public distribution system. The target groups comprised a limited number of low income people in cities, certain deficit states such as West Bengal and Kerala, and the deficit districts on state borders.
Commodities Both the central government’s Food Corporation of India (FCI) and civil supplies corporations of individual states have found it necessary to diversify, as devices to increase their turnover in order to reap economies of scale and to reduce trading risks. In the late 1970s the acquisition from procurement and imports of a large buffer stock of foodgrains led to a 121
Implementation of food distribution policies
withdrawal from intervention in procurement. It has also led to the distribution of fair price commodities to concentrations of government servants and to captive markets such as the army, police, hospitals and prisons; and the distribution of a limited quantity as kind payment for routine repair work done on behalf of local government institutions, during times of peak agricultural demand for agricultural labour. l Technology The partial socialization of trade leads to a significant change in technology in the direction of large size and capacity in both storage and processing. The lack of viability of such technology except at high capacity utilization has led to attempts to develop much more highly centralized distribution systems, to subsidies, and most importantly to the perpetuation of institutional links with private trade, the latter which controls lower costs and more versatile technologies. Finance The partial socialization of trade has changed the mobilization of financial resources. Paradoxically both state and central government trading corporations emphasize the commercial base to their operations in their annual reports. Meanwhile the civil supplies corporations indulge in internal cross-subsidization between profit and loss making trade and require intermittent bailing-out from the state governments’ general revenues. FCI by contrast now needs Rs 10 per individual in India in subsidy from central government revenues. Even the reforms mooted for Food For Work and Employment Guarantee schemes require resources from general funds to cover an increase in technical personnel administering the kind payment schemes. FCI has failed in its one clearly financial objective: to be a source of credit for farmers. Both FCI and the civil supplies corporations have been destinations of credit from international financial institutions notably the World Bank via the Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation for investment in physical infrastructure. But state trading is not profitable for the state. Its circumscription by other financial, trading, infrastructural and policy making institutions of central and state governments is used to justify patterns of operation requiring subsidy.
Beneficiaries
‘Barbara Ha&s, State and Market:The political Eccncmy of Exchange in a Dryland Regkm of south India, Concept
Pbkhing,
New Delhi, 1983, Chaps 4, 8
and 9. 2K.Subbarac, Rice Madt&ng System and Co~~ulso~ Levies, InetiMe of Economic Growth,Delhi,1978. 122
of state trading
That state trading is perpetuated is indicative that a number of interests are served by its perpetuation. First, the FCI does not harm the interests of powerful surplus producers of wheat and rice in North India where its procurement prices exceed market ones. Elsewhere, since procurement at low prices directly from producers is easily and massively evaded,2 the interests of large surplus producers are not materially threatened. Second, the relationship between private food merchants and the food parastatals is profoundly ambiguous. On the one hand coercion and conflict are characteristic. Movement restrictions cut off supplies and f orce merchant-millers into speculative passivity as agents of the state. Powerful merchants can criminally syphon resources out of public distribution and into the risky and highly profitable black market resulting from movement restrictions. The legitimate need of the state to be vigilant against such activity can turn into rank oppression of private merchants on occasion. FOOD POLICYMay 1983
Implementation of food distribution policies
Yet, on the other hand, collaboration with the state may not be against private mercantile interests. The existence of markets distorted by the states provides opportunities for illegal excess profit making through black marketing. Acute market irnxzrfections may allow the spawning of large numbers of petty dealers smuggling profitably across the trading cordons.4 Furthermore, the state needs private merchants, who mediate in the management of labour, whose technology operates at lower costs than that in the control of the state, and who reduce the fixed cost component of state trading operations by the expedient of their intermittent co-option. In turn this relationship allows contract millers to trade and process freely whenever food distribution policies are liberalized. Third, international interests are served by these institutions being a market for technology and for credit underwritten by the Indian state (by means of paid-up capital, direct and indirect subsidies). The rapidly growing institutions and programmes of central govemment which independently circumscribe state trading are used to justify high levels of subsidy. State trading involves a continual reinvesting in purely mercantile activities. These tend to promote monopolies which thwart investment in the expansion of commodity production on which both the private and state mercantile sector depend for their further appropriation of resources.
Implemented interventions in food distribution and consumption State trading has rarely involved a regular release of supplies onto the open market to contain retail prices below specified ceilings. It has generally functioned as a relief or welfare system via a separate network of Fair Price Shops (FPS), whose supplies, until recently at least, were dominated by imported wheat. The creation of a separate ‘fair price’ 3H.S. Aulakh and A.S. Kahlon, ‘The role of network leads to the evolution of a multiple pricing system. The high zonal wlii in creatingan imperfectma&et retail prices of the black market and the residual market (in districts stru&re’, -Indian Joimal of Agricuftural where procurement is coerced) puts pressure on ‘fair price’ retailers to Economics. Vol33. No 1.1978. w 59-87. reduce the difference between the markets, and then to pocket it. 4Bakwa Harri.s.s,tiaddy’and di& Marketing in Northern Tamil Nadu, Sangam The record for the Fair Price Shop system is as follows: Publiihing Companyfor Madras Instituteof Development Studii, Madras, 1979; S.S. Siiakumar, ‘Aspects of agartan ecunomy in Tamil Nadu: A study of two villages’, Economic and Political Weekly, Voll3, No 20,8 May 1978. %ee studies for Uttar Pradssh, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka respectively as fotbws: V.B. Sirgh, An Evaluation of Faii Price Shops, Oxford IBH Pub Ho, Delhi, 1973; P.S. George, Public Disbib&km of Foodgrains in Kemla: Income Distribution, lmplicatlons and Effectiveness, Reeearch Report No 7, International
Institute, Polii Research Food Washington, DC, 1979; S&barao, OP tit, Ref 2; k Subbarao, ‘What is a “SGplus State”?: An anaM& of the wblii diibution’, A&a tignana, i&l; and B. Harks, Coarse Grains, Coarse Interventions, Twenty-First Century Publishing Trust, New Delhi, 1983.
FOOD POLICVMay1983
l
a 0 0
The uptake of publicly distributed foodgrains is variable, depending on local production and on the relationship between controlled ‘fair’ prices and uncontrolled black or residual market prices. Consumers face problems of lack of physical access to state trading outlets, of adulteration, and poor quality of grain and, at times, of corruption and black marketing. Generally, however, it is supply rather than demand which is the key constraint on fair price sales. Even though low income groups in urban areas undoubtedly benefit from FPS, those of rural areas are rarely covered by the network. Rural people dependent on markets for food may even subsidize it themselves by virtue of their paying prices for grain inclusive of a hoist which compensates food traders for the losses made by compulsory levies to state trading agencies at fixed prices lower than market ones.5
Implementation
of food dism’bution policies
Public distribution
of food: a case study
Coimbatore District is a deficit region for foodgrains, sensitively located on a state border and a focal entrep& in the private, inter-regional foodgrains distribution system. A major activity of the state Civil Supplies Corporation here, besides the storage and processing of rice, is therefore the final distribution of essential commodities through the system of Fair Price Shops. There are 665 in the district as a whole consisting of 134 urban retail cooperatives and 457 rural cooperatives, 35 Civil Supplies Corporation stores in Coimbatore City, and 11 such stores in rural areas, 28 private shops and ‘private cooperatives’ run by the managements of large textiles and engineering factories for their workers. The District Supply Office budgets the supply of the commodity sold in the shops and it is the responsibility of the Civil Supplies Corporation to get goods moved from its storage points to the retail outlets, a service for which it is paid by the cooperatives and private merchants. Finance is coordinated by the State Bank of India. Marketing arrangements for foodgrains under the Fair Price shop system may vary from complete non-market distribution with quantities and prices fixed to sales at open market prices but with rationed quantities, or, as with cereals over the last 2Y2 years, sales at fixed ‘fair’ prices and (with ‘rationing’ at up to 24 kgs per purchase) almost unlimited quantities. Even though issue prices are low the distributive margin is quite large (from 43% for super fine rice to 31% for coarse rice). However, it is not as wide as in the public distribution system of Kamataka (47% for fine rice and 42% for coarse rice) or in FCI’s distribution system. Lack of effective rationing leads to offtake in inverse proportions to local harvest sixes. In 1977, with short local supplies of grain, 53 451 tonnes of cereals were disbursed through the public distribution system enough to provide each cardholder with 74 kgs of rice and wheat. But in 1978, 9.2 kgs per cardholder were sold and in 1979, 19 kgs (Table 1). Furthermore, these latter quantities cannot influence market prices. No coarse grains, which are the foodgrains eaten by low income groups in the district, have been sold. Our case study focuses on one taluk within the district. Avanashi Taluk betrays its deficit status as a cereals producer by the fact that it accounts for 7% of Coimbatore District’s ration cards but 16% of its publicly distributed rice. In Avanashi Taluk there are 48 Fair Price shops. The 7 shops located in urban areas accounted for 30% of the total turnover in
JmuarY February March x; June
July August September Source: Notee on Civil supplies, Cdmbatore Diirict, Tamil Nadu State Ciil Supplii Corporation, Coimbatore, 25.560.
124
r& mt,er
3724 :z 2053 4342 3525 4146 4707 4646 4413
1970
1979
1900
lgT7
1976
1979
2371 327 359 349 209 E
323 266 197 317 356 769 1193
292 191 207 99 102
-
473 266 263 221 284 154 216 102 89 193 196 76
163 46
z: 1629
722 746 1216 914 654 1615 659 1106 990 1040
443 502 309 622 444
E
z
G z 54 52 13 104 102 56
FOOD POLICYMay 1983
Implementatitm of food distribution poliaies Tebte2TumovuofFPS1979-69(~7~) in Avanuhl Tel&. Turnover (Rs’ow)
K
f=JL
o-9.9 10-19.9 2049.9 30439.9 40-49.9 5049.9 6049.9 70-79.9 6569.9 90-99.9 100-149.9
6 12 9 5 3 :
150-249.9 200-249.9 Note: Mean - Rs40000; Mode-Rs15ooo.
; -
: 19 10 6 6 6 6 4 -
1
; Medii
- R325000;
Source: Tehsilder, Avenashi Taluk, July 1960.
1979/80. Two of the outlets are owned by the Civil Supplies Corporation while the rest are cooperatives. The two Civil Supplies Corporation’s outlets comprise 12% of total turnover in the taluk. A total of 48 405 cardholders are eligible to use the stores - 1008 per store on average. This is half the constituency of the average shop in the state as a whole, and identifies this rural region as one of the most intensely and unusually well-provided in Tarnil Nadu. Table 2 shows the size distribution of shops in AvanashiTaluk over the period January 1979 to May 1980. Distribution is strongly skewed, the total turnover of the biggest firm being equal to that of the bottom 35% of firms. Nevertheless in terms of the value of turnover this largest firm is two-thirds of the average size of private firms for the state as a whole.‘j The retail outlets of the Fair Price shop system are very small shops. The Fair Price shop requires a monthly turnover of Rs 4500 at 1979-80 prices (Rs 54 000 per year) in order for it to be privately viable. The average turnover in Avanashi Taluk is Rs 28 000, about half of the viable turnover. In these petty sales, cereals form a minor component in comparison with sales of sugar and kerosene. Over the 17 months from January 1979 - May 1980 only 228.4 tonnes of rice and 47.7 tonnes of wheat were sold through the Fair Price shop system in Avanashi Taluk enough for 4 kgs of rice and 1 kg of wheat per cardholder per year. This is one week’s calories at FAO norms of 2400 a day. Foodgrains were distributed unequally. Ninety four per cent of rice and 30% of wheat went to the urban clients of just four stores. The remaining rural stores sold an average of two quintals of rice and five quintals of wheat a year: a single bullock cart load. The 48 stores employ 133 people, 2.8 for the average store. In 1979 the annual turnover per person was just Rs 10 200. In the state as a whole each shop receives an annual subsidy of Rs 2400, roughly enough to cover the low labour costs - Rs 100 per person per month in the smaller shops. It is doubtful that the turnover increases in drought years will compensate in the long term for indifferent performance meanwhile. Thus the Fair Price Shop system must be justified on welfare grounds. However, such a justification is not obvious when the inventories of such stores are inappropriate for the needs of the poorest, when the packaging of commodities is in excessively large units for them, when sales are for cash, not credit, and when quality is often low and supplies not always dependable. In Avanashi Taluk in years of normal production the system operates with a bias to the needs of the cardholding urban population.
Kind payment schemes While the public distribution system distributes resources mainly to urban areas, the increase of landless and the massive increase of landless women and children going into the rural workforce (60.5% and 78% increases respectively between 1964/5 and 1974/5)* testify to increasing rural distress. The acquisition of sizeable buffer stocks in public control has enabled the central and state governments to justify the distribution WnDublii data from Tamil Nadu State of rice as kind uavments. Two schemes were introduced: Food for Work _ _ timeroial. Taxes DeparbnentpWional and Employment Guarantees. Office. Coimbatw. 1979.
Tamii
Nadu
Corporation
*K.N.
State Civil Supplii
data in Hindu, 7 April 1980.
Food for Work
Raj,
‘peasanb and potatoes’p Food for Work was inaugurated by the Government Mainstream, Vol19, No 23,1991, pp 4-6,
40. FOOD POLICYMay 1983
of India in 1977 with
three objectives:
125
Implementation
of food distribution policies
0 0 0
9Govemment of India, Economic Survey 7979-80, New Delhi, 1960. loHindu, 10 June 1960; Hindu, 23 November 1960. I’M. Balaji and V.K. Ramachandran, A Report on the Implementation of the Food for Work Ptv9ramme and the Empbyment Guarantee System in Ramanathapuram and Dhannaputi Disbicts, Madras Institute
of Development Stud& Madras, 1960, mimeo. l*K. Basu, ‘Food for Work Progammes: Beyond roads that 9et washed away’, Economic and Politicai Week/v. Vol 16. Nos l-2,3-10 January 1961. e 13Govemmentof India, Food for work Pmramme: A Guideline. Ministrvof Aaricult&e arKI lrri@on, m of Rural Development, New Delhi, 1976. ‘4Govemment of India, A Quick Evaluation oftf7eFcodbfWorkFmgamme: An Intetfm Report, Programme Evaluation Chganis-
ation, Planning Commission, New Delhi, 1960. ‘5V.M. Dandekar and M. Sathe, ‘Employment Guarantee Scheme and Food for Work Programme’,Economicand Po/itica/ Weekfy, Vol15,12 April 1960. 16Hindu, 12 May 1960.
126
To generate additional gainful employment. To create durable assets. To use surplus foodgrains to develop human resources.
Fifty to one hundred per cent of wages were to be in kind. In 1978/9 in the country as a whole 286.4 million man days of work were provided and 2.5 million tonnes of foodgrains were distributed.9 The project has now been incorporated into India’s Basic Needs Strategy. In Tamil Nadu the scheme went into operation in April 1979, work projects being sanctioned by the Panchayat Union Commissioners and actually inspired by local contractors and landlords. Rice for payment is drawn on the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation and replaced by supplies from the central government buffer in the possession of the FCI. The central government allocated 73 000 tonnes to Tamil Nadu for 1979. This would provide all year round food for 50 000 people at 4 kgs per day. The central government allocated 27 000 tonnes for 1980/l (work all year round for 18 500 people). Even so the central government claimed that, ‘liberal releases through the public distribution system and Food for Work programme have prevented an increase in urban market prices for fine cereals’, and with reference to a State with a population of over 50 million. lo Balaji and Ramachandran studied the implication of this programme so far in two drought-prone districts of Tamil Nadu. l1 While it represents a considerable increase in potential funds for expenditure on public works, it provided highly inadequate employment for agricultural labour in the first year of operation; between 2.6 and 4.6 man days, least in the most backward areas and maldistributed through time to coincide with peak demand for agricultural labour and with the rainy season. There was no effect on wages and workers were paid below the Tamil Nadu State statutory minimum. The work has rarely enhanced assets. It comprises petty maintenance, often left incomplete. No financial allotment for materials needed in rural works has been included. Basu12 in a separate study, has pointed out that if kind payment schemes are simply substituting for pruned routine activities then the net employment generated may be far less than what is implied in statements on man days of work supplied under the programme. Furthermore, payment in grain in Tamil Nadu amounted to ll-14% of the total payment for work done. Grain received was 28-37% short of entitlement. Irregular supplies led to late payment and the employment of contractors, contrary to central government guidelines.‘3 A Planning Commission evaluation covering 80 villages in 10 states in 1980 confirmed the general nature of the specific observations here including the retrogressive role of contractors, who manipulated muster rolls, sold rice in open market, and paid labour lower cash rates.14 Dandekar and Sathe15 found that 90% of the beneficiaries in Maharashtra continued to be below the poverty line. Finally, in the case of Tamil Nadu, the rice from the Civil Supplies Corporation was of such poor quality that it was almost inedible, some over five years old. This brought work to a halt in Tinmelveli District too.16 Panchayat Unions were not allowed to take fine rice and to pay Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation the difference, nor were workers allowed rugi instead. It is a paradox of this programme that Coimbatore District, one of the richest and most industrialized of the state, should have cornered 30% of the entire state’s allocation to this programme in 1979 its first year of FOOD POLICYMay 1983
Implementation of food distributionpolicies
operation.17 In the year ending April 1980 the District Development Department’s own evaluation recorded that 1675 tonnes of foodgrains had been used, that Rs 1 118 611 had been disbursed and that employment had been given to 12 708 men and 8065 women. For these people this amounted to 27 days’ rice at 3 kgs a day plus Rs 53.8 in cash, such that the programme’s impact is of higher significance than in Ramnad or Dharmapuri. Nevertheless, for the district as a whole it amounts to about six days employment per head of estimated rural population. Of the 1458 works started, only 569 had been completed within the first 12 months. The utilization of the allotted rice for the district amounted to 70% by July 1980. The durable assets created were repairs to public buildings such as maternity centres, schools, rural stores, tree planting and soil conservation, and repairing irrigation tanks and channels.ls In the second year of operation the district’s plan was less ambitious, calling for 595 projects, 1590 tonnes or rices and Rs 7.16 lukhs of money. The seven blocks or panchayat unions comprising our study region have made up 55% of the entire district’s Food for Work schemes, 54% of its finance and 60% of the district’s rice allocation to Food for Work. Table 3 summarizes achievements under Food for Work in its first twelve months of operation. Our region may be subdivided into two types of subregion, blocks which implemented the programme and blocks where implementation was weak. Three blocks, Annur, Avanashi and Sultanpet, account for 80% of the region’s total programme finance, 90% of its rice and 90% of its schemes. Thirteen per cent of the allocation to Wnpublished data from Tsmil Nadu Civil the entire state went to these three blocks. Thus, although Coimbatore yi!is Corporation, dated 28 September District provided slightly more work and rice under the Food for Work scheme than districts such as Ramnad and Dhamapuri, the programme’s Wnpublished data from Coimbators has been extremely patchy in a spatial sense. I shall District Developmsnt Office, Colhxtofate, implementation evaluate it, as others have done, in terms of its stated objectives. Coimbatore, 1980.
Avmlashl Total numberof projects Road repairs NlHlerOfprojects ;~$=W&a~)
Sulur
91
131
36
Average cc& (Rs ‘000)
102 262.6 36 2.0
77 242.5 52 3.2
23 92.5 69 4.0
schoolrapaira Number of pmjecta Total coat (Ra ‘000) %oftotaiforFFW Average coat (Rs ‘000)
27 247.0 32 9.2
9 116.1 25 12.9
7 13.9 11 1.9
lntgation Number of projecta Total cost (Ra ‘000) %oftotaiforFFW Average coat (Rs‘000)
17 233.1 30 13.7
5 104.0
othena Number of pmjecta T@~t-yoJ Average coat (Ra ‘000) Percentage of totalfinancialcunponant Ftke oJmponent Albtted (tonnea) Diatributed(tonnes) Distributedaa % of totalalbtted
3 19.5 2.0 6.5
30 94.6 70 3.2
3i.O
30 13
6 66.5 70 14.6
37 294.6 43 7.9
31 146.3 67 4.7
2 25.6 20 12.6
17 110.6 16 6.5
5 21.0 12.5 4.2
-
2.6 1 11.6 10 11.6
-
32
19
369 342 93
566 497 66
5 47 47 100
65 16 25
nd 12.5 MI
21 244.0 41 11.6 26 99 52 52
nfrastructure,3aheda, repairsto6panchayatunionbuikUn@s,repaira Note:alndudes2children’snurseries,2agriadhrralstores, 5ra9ai1sb~pwtodkmaticeti toabuaatandandamoaqua,andtheaxWudkndadii.
FOODPOLKiVMay1983
127
Implementation of food distributionpolicies
‘9Andy Rutherford, cation, 1981.
Personal
communi-
As regards the durability of assets created, the great majority of schemes were routine and mostly petty repairs. Fifty per cent of Food for Work resources were invoked for roads and highway maintenance and one-quarter went to schools. Among the three implementing blocks, only 43% of resources went to roads and 24% to schools. In these blocks a third of resources went to infrastructural schemes such as tanks, canals and wells, and assets such as Panchayat Union buildings and nurseries, agricultural stores, a dispensary, a bus-stand and facilities for a weekly market; the latter two alone might be used by those who built or repaired them. By contrast roadworks accounted for 80% of Food for Work resources and the remainder went to schools in the four blocks which were poor implementers. The materials allowances for road repairs were inadequate. In using free mud for repairing tarmac roads, Food for Work workers were not creating durable assets. They were, however, ensuring for themselves the need for more repair work after the next rains. It is known that, contrary to central government guidelines, labour contractors have been used in Avanashi taluk. They respond to pressure from transport contractors eager to establish bus routes and the location of Food for Work projects may be affected by them. The Government of India stipulated that between 50 and 100% of the resources allocated should comprise kind payment in grain. In our seven blocks this amounted to 40%: 43% in implementing blocks and 27% in non-implementing blocks. The latter is still twice as great as the maximum proportion of rice in Ramnad and Dhamapuri Districts. Furthermore, while 55% of the rice allocated was actually paid out in non-implementing blocks, 86% was distributed in implementing blocks. The meaning of these statistics is qualified by cases of refusal of mouldy rice from stocks of over two years old. Workers were prepared to accept wages lower than those stipulated provided payment was in cash. Poor quality Food for Work rice was then sold to merchants who double boiled it and wholesaled it in Kerala. l9 On the creation of gainful employment, I could not obtain block-wise data on actual numbers employed.. It is clear, however, from data on financial and kind resources, that employment was enormously concentrated in the three implementing blocks and only these could have had any impact on wage rates or work for agricultural labourers. Table 4 gives the distributions through time of rice in the first year of operation. That of implementing blocks is more evenly distributed than Tsbls 4. Dlblocks In coknklors
0frkaundsrFoodforWorkmdEmpkymentGusmtssScbsmss~n7 Dhblct, 1979f00. TzzFg Total mnnes
July 1979
August September
October NoWmbef December January 1960 February
Note: aAnnur, Avanaehi, ~uftanpet; bsulur, Palladam, ~Nfw. km@Ur did ti windy monthlydata. Source: Original data from Panchayal Unions.
+T JUne
July
%
Total tonnes
%
5.7
0.6
2.3
2.1
12.6 61.2 114.6 176.1 94.3 14.2 149.6 54.6 22.6 31.9 131
1.4 6.6 12.6 19.9 10.5 1.6 16.7 6.1 2.5 3.5 14.7
3.6 19.4 11.4 21.3 37.5 2.6 3.6 0.5 2.9 na na
3.3 17.9 10.5 19.7 34.7 2.6 3.5 0.5 2.6
20.3
2.2
2.7
2.5
FOOD POLICY May 1983
Implementation of food distribution policies
that of poor implementers, though for both the months October to January are the months of peak activity. These are also peak times for demand for agricultural labour and coincide with the North East Monsoon. Therefore, Food for Work competes for agricultural labour. It does not complement it in the off-season. Employment Guurantee Scheme In September 1979 a second food distribution scheme went into operation. The Employment Guarantee Scheme had as its objective the creation of employment and skills for the unemployed to make them self-employed in due course. Employment is guaranteed within 30 days to those able-bodied people over 18 who are not beneficiaries of rural development, small farmer or drought prone area development projects and who have registered as unemployed. If no employment is found within that period a dole of Rs 1 per day paid in rice at Rs 1.50 per kg is provided. For those given work, payment is Rs 6 a day in rice (4 kgs). The study of Ramnad and Dharmapuri districts showed that no funds were allowed under the scheme for labour, compared with a materials component of Rs 1 lakh per Panchayat Union. Employment exchanges had not been established, employment had not been given nor had the doles. The schemes simply did not exist.20 Tamil Nadu State’s allocation of Rs 4 crores (compared with Kamataka’s allocation of Rs 30 crores)z* represents about ll/z days employment for all agricultural labour. An attempt to implement the scheme has been made in Coimbatore District. Of the 28 721 registered unemployed by July 1980, 55% had been given work, though the District Development Officer acknowledged that, as with Food for Work, jobs had been provided in the peak agricultural season. Projects planned under the Employment Guarantee scheme for 1980/81 totalled 766 at a cost of Rs 7.4 million and necessitating 2343 tonnes of rice. The Employment Guarantee scheme is therefore a larger scheme here than is Food for Work. The case study region of seven blocks is far less prominent a sink for investment under the Employment Guarantee scheme than it is under the Food for Work scheme, comprising 31% of the projects under employment guarantee, 25% of money costs, and 32% of rice. As with Food for Work there are contrasts between the same implementing and nonimplementing blocks. The three implementing blocks comer 60% of projects in this region, 70% of finance, and 80% of the rice. Table 5 gives details of progress during the first year. Employment has been provided only for road repairs, including some larger projects in the implementing blocks but dominated by petty maintenance in non-implementing blocks. Road mending is the only ‘skill’ for which ‘training’ is provided. This is hardly a job in which one can become ‘self-employed in future’. However, it is clear that considerable menial employment was provided in certain places - 70 000 man days in Avanashi, an implementing block contrasted with 6400 man days in Pongalur, a poor implementer. These kind payment schemes are to be expanded since it is stated by the Government of India that they have ‘potential to become a focal programme for the generation of rural employment in the coming years’.22 Suggested reforms to these kind payment schemes imply an increase in 2oM.Balaliandv.K. R~achand~,cPcit, the state bureaucracy. The central government, having renamed them Ref 11. the National Rural Employment Programme, has advised state 21Hindu, 3 November 1980. to appoint technical personnel at block level to supervise 2*Govemmentof India,op cit. Ref 14, p 11. governments FOOD POLICYMay 1983
129
Implementation
of food distribution policies
projects, to appoint field officers to monitor schemes and to create a new agency to be responsible for the delivery of foodgrains from FCI and civil supplies corporation stores to work sites. Private contractors could then be banned. But there is little to indicate the removal or alleviation of constraints like finance. Hence the kind payment schemes may be expected to continue to be of little importance even as welfare measures except in small pockets.
Conclusion The public distribution of foodgrains provides (subsidized) employment for government shopkeepers and reduces the financial burden, to central and state governments, of large buffer stocks. It has been claimed that such schemes are at best the application of a disguised famine code, enabling the survival and reproduction of those with nothing but their labour power but without any attempt to transform agrarian production relations. It is claimed that this subsidizes the production of the labour force available to landlords and to capitalist farmers, though it is the poor rather than the landlords who become dependent on the emerging ‘welfare state’. Evidence shows that even in pockets where the scheme has been ‘intensively’ implemented, it has had none of the impact necessary for this type of explanation to have force.
130
FOOD POLICY May 1963