Antyodaya through Annapurna Rasoi

On the completion of one year of Government, Prime Minister in his path-breaking speech announced that the government policies will be guided by the principle of 'Antyodaya'. The government, he said will dedicate itself to the poor, marginalised and those left behind and shall work towards their empowerment in the war against poverty. Poor centric policies took a front seat in BJP states agenda too, when in the 2016 executive the party declared that inspired from Deendayal Upadhyay concept of 'Antyodaya', it is determined to take welfare to the poorest of the poor.

However, the term 'Antyodaya' was not new to Rajasthan. In 1977, the then BJP led government in the State introduced 'Antyodaya' as a rural development programme where target group approach was reengineered to evolve an innovative welfare scheme for the poorest of the poor households at the village level. This was an experiment in itself of the 'bottom-up' approach which was later assessed by the UNESCO along with the 'Swa-nirwar' of Bangladesh as a novel experiment in the field of poverty alleviation and rural welfare in which I too had contributed and published a book.

'Antyodaya' was revisited in a big way by the current BJP government when the game changing Bhamashah Yojna was reintroduced again in 2014 in its refined version. The scheme now has emerged as the largest financial inclusion and e-governance scheme of the decade. A pioneering effort towards the "big data" led policy planning, Bhamashah has reached to touch 5 crore 50 lakh 49 thousand members with more than 32 crores transactions.

Another innovative version of 'Antyodaya' concept appears as Annapoorna Rasoi Yojana. Having the statistics of malnutrition amongst the immigrant workers, children and poor families, it was felt that the target group approach is needed as an intervention policy along with the overall social investment in health and education.

Nutritious food is basic right of every citizen. Poverty deprives them from this right. Optimum intervention policy should institute a welfare scheme which ascertains the access to quality food to the marginalised groups. Annapoorna Rasoi Yojana emerges as effective intervention effort. Initiated on 15^th December 2016 by the Chief Minister Smt. Vasundhara Raje, it has expanded in multiplicity in a very short span of time.

In her budget speech of year 2017-18, she announced that the Annpoorna Rasoi would be implemented in all 191 ULBs of the state. 500 smart kitchen mobile vans were promised till the end of the year. This scheme was ambitious, as just in about 6 months it was to benefit about 4 lakh 50 thousand people per day through the supply of hygienic and nutritious food.

This scheme was further refined to include 300 breakfasts, lunches and dinners from 100 where the breakfast was for Rs. 5 and lunch and dinner for Rs. 8 per plate. The quantity of breakfast was also increased from 250 to 350 grams and lunch and dinner were also increased to 100 grams making it to 450 grams.

The target beneficiary groups included migrants - largely labour class, rikshaw pullers, auto-drivers, old and disabled persons, students coming from poor families, working class and those who needed nutritional support. It is laudable.

To our understanding, the scheme is one of the most innovative and comprehensive nutritional guarantee schemes as each van serve around 600 beneficiaries per day and the standard of hygienic is superlative as most items are pre-cooked with nutritional standards. Consistent capacity building and service providing exercises are also Part of the expert conduct by various local bodies.

Some interesting facts emerge from a quick analysis of data. Firstly, there is a higher consumption of lunch in comparison to breakfast and dinner, which shows the scheme is benefitting the casual labours and migrants in a significant way. Again, due to the higher migration rate to the cities like Jaipur, Ajmer, Kota and Udaipur one would find that the rate of consumption of lunch is higher in bigger cities while the dinner consumption rate swells in tehsils. However, in smaller towns, breakfast, lunch and dinner are almost equally sold suggesting that local poor population is benefitting through this grass-root welfare project.

While no specific gender based or age based data could be extracted, an aerial study based on guesstimates suggest that about 35% of the beneficiaries are female and children, which confirms inclusiveness.

State Government introduced POS machines for transparent beneficiary entitlement, enhanced the budget expenditure on drinking water by 15.68% and ensured the quality nutritious food to the poorest of the poor through its poor centric budget in one go.

The annapoorna rasoi is an effective "Antyodaya" initiative which clearly depicts that the government is committed to further expand expenditure towards the poorest of the poor to at least provide them basic of the basics – FOOD & WATER.

*Above are the personal views of the writer. Writer is presently the Chairperson (State Minister) of 5^th State Finance Commission of Rasjasthan.