Kamal Prasad, his wife Parvati, and their daughters Usha and Annu have done everything the government has ever asked them to. Got a ration card in 2008. Enrolled for UID in 2012. After some initial difficulty, Parvati learned to use a voting machine, and cast her vote during the last election. She’ll vote again, says Parvati, but not for “the hand”. “Why should I?” she says, “It didn’t help me at all.”
For all the talk about the food security bill being an election stunt—since the state too goes to polls a few months away—getting subsidised cereals, sugar or oil into their kitchen has remained a pipe dream for this low-income family in south Delhi’s Rangpura locality. Their ration card, with several photocopies of it, has being lying unused for the last five years behind layers of plastic in a safe corner of their one-room tenement. The family is not even sure if there’s a fair price shop nearby, or if it is meant for them. “The MLA in Bijwasan needs to endorse our card before we can use it to buy food,” says Parvati. “When we go to them, they keep copies of it and say they’ll call us when it’s ready—but it has not happened.”
Parvati, like her neighbours, buys food only from the open market. This makes both the card and the promised subsidy irrelevant. Even the LPG cylinders they use, they buy from the capital’s thriving “black” market, for Rs 1,200 every two months. Now the Prasads, whose breadwinner Kamal earns Rs 5,000-6,000 a month building roads, have another set of questions—what will we get from the new bill? Will the old card still work? Do we need a UID to access the new subsidy?
Though the state of Delhi has started rolling out the new entitlements last month, the implementation is far from proper. Unless the new law translates into reality, Rangpura will vote for food, not promises, in their bellies.
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