Food Bill Can Inspire Many Countries, Says UN Official

New Delhi: India’s food security law has global significance and it can inspire many countries to come up with similar legislation, a UN official said.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved implementation of the food security law through an ordinance to give 67 percent of the population the right to highly subsidised foodgrains. India is home to 25 percent of the world’s hungry poor.

“It (the food law) has global significance,” Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, said. “I believe it is an important movement for the right to food in India. It can inspire many countries to do the same thing.”

De Schutter, who met Food Minister KV Thomas said other countries have made similar attempts but India’s social welfare programme is the largest in the world because of the sheer size of its population.

Some countries that run social welfare programmes to provide food security may remove or stop them with changes in the government and fiscal conditions, he said.

“What this bill will do is it will protect as a legal right what otherwise are benefits given away as charity by the government. I think it is of great and symbolic significance,” the official told reporters after meeting the Food Minister in New Delhi.

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