NEW DELHI: The Cabinet has cleared the Food Security Bill to provide subsidised rice, wheat and cereals to two-thirds of the country's population, or 800 million people. The revised bill proposes to provide 5 kg of foodgrains per person every month-rice at 3 per kg, wheat at 2 per kg and cereals at 1 per kg. It will cover 75% of the rural population and 50% of the poor in urban India."The Bill will now be taken to Parliament for discussion this week," Food Minister K V Thomas said on Tuesday.The extra burden on the food subsidy would be about 20,000 crore, while foodgrains requirement is expected to be 61.23 million tonnes, he said. The total food subsidy to cover expenditure for its Food Security Bill is expected to be 1.3 lakh crore. The government has been keen to table the bill in the ongoing budget session before Parliament breaks for a month from March 22.According to the revised bill, the subsidised grains would be given without discriminating between priority households and general households. In the original bill, priority households were entitled to 7 kg of rice, wheat and coarse grains per person per month at 3, 2 and 1 per kg.The amendments in the Bill were done after taking into account the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee . At present, below-the-poverty-line families effectively get 7 kg of wheat at 4.15 a kg and rice at 5.65 per kg every month.

The food security scheme will be linked to the Aadhar scheme, which provides every citizen with a unique identification number that is linked to a database that includes the biometrics of all cardholders.



A pet project of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, the Food Security Bill was introduced in December 2011, and was referred to the standing committee for examination in January 2012.



The budget puts spending on food subsidies for 2013-14 at 90,000 crore with Finance Minister P Chidambaram announcing that he would set aside an extra 10,000 crore for the bill.



Around 24.3 million families covered under Antyodaya Anna Yojana scheme under public distribution system would, however, get legal entitlement to 35 kg of foodgrains per family per month.