Indian president signs into law food safety bill

NEW DELHI - Indian President Pranab Mukherjee Friday signed into law the National Food Security Bill, two days after the country's Cabinet of Ministers passed an ordinance to approve it.

The ordinance, however, will also have to be passed by the Indian Parliament as required under the Constitution.

The Cabinet had Wednesday issued the executive order to approve the ambitious scheme that aims to provide food at subsidized rates to the country's poor who constitute two-thirds of the population, after failing to gain parliamentary support.

"The Cabinet has approved the food security ordinance unanimously," Food Minister K.V. Thomas had said, after a Cabinet meeting chaired by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The scheme proposes to provide a kilo of rice at three Indian rupees (six US cents), wheat at two rupees and millet at one rupee. It will ensure that the poor have the right to at least five kg of food grains every month, is to apply to 75 per cent of Indians living in rural areas and 50 per cent of the urban population.

The Food Security Bill, the brainchild of India's ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, is being called one of the world's largest welfare schemes. It was an election promise made by the Congress.

While the Congress says the bill aims at combating hunger, the opposition parties claim it's a poll gimmick, with barely a year to go for the general elections.