Methanation in Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG) Production

Methanation in Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG) Production Methanation is the process of producing methane from H2 and CO. Methane (an odourless and colourless gas, composed of four hydrogen molecules attached to one carbon molecule) is found in natural gas that we can use in our homes for energy. Methane found in natural gas is produced by anaerobic bacteria, which break down organic material and the waste product is the natural gas. The natural gas that is sought after by companies such as BP drilling for oil and gas was produced by anaerobic bacteria millions of years ago. Methane is used in many processes some of which are explained below. We will mainly consider methanation in the production of Substitute Natural Gas (SNG) as this can be used instead of natural gas which has limited resources and supply. Methanation is the reverse reaction of steam methane reforming. It is one of the most important steps in ammonia plants as the COx produced in the overall steam reforming process need to be separated from the H2, as the H2 is to be used for ammonia synthesis. This process is also referred to as purification methanation. The content of oxides of carbon in the production of ammonia must be reduced to a very low level to prevent catalyst poisoning2. After the low temperature shift (LTS) reaction and deduction of CO2, the methanation reaction is used to remove any residual COx from the process stream before ammonia synthesis. Trace amounts of CO and CO2 are reacted with hydrogen in the presence of a nickel oxide catalyst to produce a mixture of methane and water. This process removes the residual 0.2-0.5% CO and 0.1%-0.2% CO2 to about 5ppm (it is vital to in the production of ammonia to remove the COx as even a low level significantly reduces the methanation rate) by reduction to methane with hydrogen in a fixed-bed reactor, with a 15-35 wt% Ni/Al2O3 catalyst (2).This catalyst is usually prepared by impregnating high surface area ÃŽÂ ³- Al2O3 with a soluble Ni salt. MgO can be used to impede sintering of the active Ni crystallites. For this process methanation is normally carried out in an adiabatic, fixed-bed reactor at 30 atm, with an inlet temperature of 300 °C and an exit temperature of 365 °C. This reaction is highly exothermic and the temperatures of the bed are kept below 400 °C so that catalyst sintering and carbon deposition is prevented. 3 What is SNG? Substitute/Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG) is similar to natural gas but produced from coal or biomass (e.g. wood, straw, waste). It is a manufactured product which is chemically similar to natural gas. Natural gas is the worldwide fuel of choice but there is limited supply, so SNG is one of the options to overcome this. Producing SNG from biomass is also considered to be thought of as green gas as it avoids extra CO2 emissions, because it is carbon neutral. SNG has many advantages some of which are: the already existing gas supply infrastructure (e.g. pipelines) which allow the gas to be distributed throughout a country such as the USA and also worldwide  high conversion efficiency Efficient final use technologies that are well-established e.g. Compressed Natural Gas (CNG cars), Combined Heat and Power (CHP), and Heating. What is the methanation process and how is it used in the production of SNG? CO + 3H2 † Ã¢â‚¬  CH4 + H2O The reaction between H2 and CO can produce a number of different products depending on the reaction conditions, the catalyst used and the stoichiometry of the reactants. The reaction of great interest to us is the one producing methane. This reaction over a nickel catalyst was first reported by Sabatier and Senderens (1902, 1905) and even though a lot of research has gone into which catalyst is the best for methanation, nickel has continued as the key catalyst for methanation because of its selectivity for the production of methane, high activity, and inexpensiveness compared to other catalysts. Catalysts involved in methanation operate for a long time in catalyst beds and for that reason catalyst life and strength are also of major importance. Many problems such as sulphur poisoning are involved with these catalysts; they are mentioned in a later section of this report.5 The above forward reaction is exothermic, releasing heat (the delta H values are negative showing this) and the forward reaction is favoured by low temperature and high pressure, Product gas with a high fraction of CH4 can only be generated at low temperature (300-350 °C) and high pressure > 20 bar.6 We also know from Le Chateliers Principle that pressure favours the side with fewer moles which in this case is the forward reaction producing methane and water, so a high pressure should be used. The production of methane is a fundamental step in the process of manufacturing that gas from coal to produce SNG. The typical methanation process involved in SNG consists of three fixed-bed methanating stages that are used in series with a fixed-bed of catalyst. A single stage process can and has also been used for methanation, such as the IRMA Methanation pilot plant KFA project, the conditions for this single stage were P = 30 bar; T = 250-700 °C (1 stage); Volumetric flow rate = 600m3 (STP)h -1, (synthesis gas); 1100 operating hours since 19817. The three stage methanation process consists of: Total Gasification of the coal in steam, possibly with oxygen, C+H2O† Ã¢â‚¬ H2+ CO Changing the ratio of H2 to CO in the product gas by the water gas shift reaction, and then removing any residual CO2. CO+H2O† Ã¢â‚¬ H2+CO2 The hydrogen and carbon monoxide are converted to methane (following the removal of damaging material to the process such as hydrogen sulphide) using a catalyst (nickel is the most common for this process as explained later in this report.). This final stage is a straight through reactor operating at lower temperature than that of the previous stages as shown in Fig.1 below. This gives methane which contains typically less than 3% H2, 0.1% CO and has a thermal efficiency of approximately 70% for the total process. This methane produced can then be use in the production of SNG. CO + 3H2 † Ã¢â‚¬  CH4 + H2O 8 As the temperature needs to be controlled the product gases are recycled over the first stages with interstage cooling which prevents the temperature from increasing and also means that the process is more efficient as the gases are recycled and you dont have to put extra cooling in to keep the temperature from rising which saves money. The avoiding of high temperatures also protects the catalysts, if the reaction temperature becomes too high not only is the equilibrium state of the hydrogenation reaction adversely affected but the catalyst life is shortened by sintering of the metal particles9. Fig. 1 shows the three-stage process with fixed-bed reactors and the corresponding thermodynamic equilibrium temperatures for the synthesis gas with 10% CH4 at stage one and the desired dry product gas with more than 80% CH4. This diagram also shows that after the first stages the temperature decreases again and this is to avoid high temperatures in order to protect the catalyst but also to reach thermodynamic equilibrium at low temperatures. This is done by product gas recycling cooling as explained before. It is also important to know that when producing SNG by methanation the CO and H2 (i.e. the reactants) will contain a lot more of the monoxide than in the methanation process used for ammonia synthesis. In ammonia synthesis only a small amount of monoxides (less than 1%) are found however in SNG production the methanation process reactants can have 30-50% of the monoxide. It is also important to know that in the purification methanation even a low amount of monoxides can seriously deteriorate the methanation process by catalyst poisoning.8 This picture shows the process of coal gasification, and then the products being cleaned and readied for methanation. Gasification is simply the process of producing coal gas, a mixture of CO and H2 which is known as syngas. This syngas can then be used in the methanation process producing SNG. How methanation is used in industry From the 1970s quite a few methanation processes have been developed which consist of fixed bed and fluidised bed methanation. Most of the methanation processes used in industry use fixed bed reactors (used for the methanation in ammonia production, described before) as they are the most common type of reactor used in industry for many reasons such as having the simplest multi-phase reactor configuration where the solid phase is stationary and complications arising from the second phases mixing mode are not present.10 However, some processes use fluidised bed reactors also as fluidized bed methanation presents the advantage of good heat transfer from the process gas side to the cooling medium and the advantage of particular simplicity when exchanging the catalyst in case of catalyst poisoning or catalyst deactivation.11 The choice of the reactor also depends on the size of the reactor needed and the costs of setup and operating (does it need to be cleaned regularly or not as this cos ts money ad stops production). One of the biggest plants to make SNG from coal-derived syngas was started up in 1984; the Great Plains Synfuels Plant of Dakota Gasification Co. which cost $2.1billion was the only SNG plant of that scale operating in the world. The plant uses Lurgi GmbH gasifiers (a steel construction where around each time 8 tons of coal is fed into a compartment at its top, known as a coal lock, which is then sealed with a gas being fed into it ahead of the bottom of the lock opening to feed coal, in this plant the coal is Lignite which is 60-70%carbon, into the body of the gasifier, this builds up high pressure and the high pressure and temperature feed of steam and oxygen in the gasifier decompose the lignite to produce syngas). The syngas is then converted to SNG using DPT methanation catalysts. This plant produces approximately 153 million ft3/day of SNG which is piped throughout the US. This facility has also implemented CCS (carbon capture and storage) and as of the end of last year (31/12/ 2009) it has captured more than 17.4 million m.t. of CO2.12As you can imagine $2.1billion is a lot of money and was worth even more in 1984 showing that using methanation to produce SNG is not a small venture but a major player in the search for more fuel as the worlds gas and oil reserves are depleting. In 2009 the plant produced $264.7 million worth of SNG out of total revenue of $426.1 million. The operating costs for this plant (including maintenance) were $38,504,111.13This shows that the investment of $2.1billion was a really good decision not only in terms of producing SNG from methane but also a really great business return. FIGURE 3 DPTs methanation process is a refinement and further development of the Catalytic Rich Gas (CRG) process, which was first developed by British Gas Corp. in the late 1960s to convert naphtha into town gas. The process involves several methanator reactors in series, with heat recovered from the exothermic reaction (CO + 3H2 † Ã¢â‚¬  CH4 + H2O) used to raise high pressure superheated steam and to preheat the feed. Each reaction stage consists of a fixed bed of CRG catalyst operating adiabatically.12 However, new and more efficient processes are being implemented in industry, that especially focus on the conversion of biomass, such as the Milena process in the Netherlands. The ECN (Energy Research Center of the Netherlands) has developed a biomass gasification technology with high gas efficiency and a high methane yield which allows it to be used for gas-engine applications. This process has been given the name Milena, and the product gas can be upgraded to SNG and ECN has the ambition to turn this into large scale SNG production with an energy efficiency of 70%. This would be much needed as the Netherlands relies on 50% of its energy from natural gas (which is not renewable) so using SNG for biomass would be a substitute for this and the biomass is available in large quantities and it a lot cleaner and friendlier to the environment than natural gas.14 The biomass has to be converted into SNG by gasification and then methanation (theses processes and their outlines have been mentioned before). This allows it to reach efficiency, say from wood, up to 65% (this efficiency is calculated from the chemical energy output of SNG compared to the chemical energy input of wood). Biomass (e.g. wood and straw) being used to produce SNG has the advantage over coal based SNG of being almost CO2 neutral, without CCS. Production of synthetic natural gas (SNG) from coal and dry biomass.4 Catalyst Used The main catalysts that are used as methanation catalysts are nickel or nickel supported catalysts. This is because the key catalyst properties of nickel are excellent for methanation as it has long life, high activity, selectivity for the formation of methane in preference to other hydrocarbons and the low cost compared to other catalysts. One of the main disadvantages for nickel catalysts is the sensitivity to poisoning by sulphur, other catalysts are available that are sulphur-resistant and also catalyse the methanation reaction but these are much less active than nickel resulting in a slower rate of reaction. For example, one manufacturers catalysts are formulated on Ca aluminate base with the active nickel incorporated in a NiO/MgO solution, this leads to negligible nickel sintering.10In catalytic methanation many promoters for nickel have been studied such as copper, zinc oxide, magnesia, iron, calcium oxide, chromia and alumina. What was found was that alumina, chromia and magnesia were the best promoters in terms of activity and thermal stability. It was also found that for thermal and mechanical stability the best of a number of NiO methanation catalysts on supports of A12O3, a mixture of A12O3 and CaO, MgO, SiO2 and Cr2 O3 was NiO-AI2O3 containing 35% NiO.15 Many other factors are taken into consideration when choosing the catalyst for the methanation process. These are explained below: (i) Sulphur poisoning. Sulphur poisoning causes the methanation catalysts, to become inactive, this is because the reactants have brought in an alien molecule and this sits on the active site, the reactants now have to compete with this poison for the active sites and this results in a loss of the active surface area therefore decreasing the rate of reaction.10 (ii) Thermal stability. This reaction is highly exothermic it is very important to make sure that the reaction temperature does not become too high because it affects the equilibrium state of the reaction unfavourably and the catalyst life decreases due to sintering of the metal particles, where the particles come together, decreasing the surface area compared to when no sintering took place, thus less reaction is obtained. As mentioned previously the reaction temperature for this reaction is 300 °C-400 °Cfor which the nickel based catalysts used are sufficient in terms of longevity and activity. But there are catalysts tat are able to operate at higher temperatures than nickel based catalysts and these would be even more desirable as the higher the temperature at which the heat of methanation is released the more effectively can it contribute to overall thermal efficiency of the conversion process, for example of coal to SNG, it is also worthwhile to notice that at these higher temperatures the problem of sulphur poisoning decreases due to instability of the catalyst metal sulphide9. So why is it that in industry the use of catalysts that are suitable for operation at higher temperatures are not selected and for e.g. nickel catalysts are favoured? This is due to the fact that it is not always feasible to use the best catalyst for the process as it may cost too much to buy. (iii) Coke formation and fouling Carbon in its unreactive form, or as Ni3C produced on the Nickel catalyst, causes a loss of catalyst activity9. The coke formed blocks the reactants from reaching the active sites and the fouling is caused by the reaction forming a by-product which then sits on the active site, masking it. It is possible to avoid the unwanted carbon formation in the manufacture of SNG by controlling the water gas shift reaction. This is the 2nd step shown in figure 2 previously. The cost of nickel catalysts varies as the price of nickel fluctuates. The suppliers of these catalysts do not sell just a few kilograms of the catalyst they have a minimum orders quantity, e.g. 20 tons at the rate of $15000-$30000 per ton. An example of a Methanation catalyst used in industry is the SG-9701 (the name may be fancy but it is mostly nickel as shown in the table) produced by the global leader in catalysis, BASF who have found that although the catalysts operate at low temperature and show good conversion rates in the Methanation process, they eventually begin to age and lose their effectiveness, that is why through their current research they have identified that Methanation Catalyst relies on the mature combination of nickel oxide technology on an alumina matrix. However, through careful control of composition and geometry and the addition of a Rare Earth promoter, a number of performance improvements are achieved, these improvements are temperature resistance and long mechanical life. BASFs methanation catalyst also boasts a superior physical makeup reducing deterioration that can lead to increased pressure drop in the system16 For the future? Another SNG project was decided upon in this April between ConocoPhillips and POSCO (a Korean steel-manufacturing company) in which ConocoPhillips E-Gas technology is being used with POSCOs Gwangyang coal to SNG project. This facility has targeted production of 500,000 m.t. of SNG; I will not go further with this project as the methanation technology to be used has not yet been announced and a new technology to produce SNG using petroleum coke (petcoke) (an advanced technology that captures and sequesters CO2 emissions from an industrial source) is to be implemented with this at a further stage. 12 Hydromethanation-Peabody Energy and GreatPoint Energy Mass recently signed an agreement to produce SNG from coal, H2 from coal and also CCS projects. These are wanted to be developed with Bluegas technology, which uses catalytic Hydromethanation to produce H2 and SNG. The process is more efficient and cost effective than conventional gasification routes to SNG. In the bluegas process a propriety catalyst is dispersed with the feedstock (coal, petcoke, or biomass), and the mixture loaded into the reactor. Pressurized steam is injected from below to fluidize the mixture, which reacts to form CH4, CO2, H2 and CO.12 There is also a German-Austrian project that wants to produce methane from extra electrical energy that has been generated from solar or wind power and a process that combines methanation with electrolysis has been developed at the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research, Germany. Conclusion Methanation is a very important process especially in todays environment where we look to reduce CO2 emissions further and producing SNG from biomass using the methanation process does this rather than using natural gas. Methane is used in the gas that provides our homes with energy and heating. We need to find even more efficient processes like the ones described above that use methanation to produce SNG.

How Social Networking Makes Money Essay

A.Social networking is a daily activity for most of us. Facebook, Twitter all this sites have hundreds of millions of users. One thing I always think about, are these sites are businesses? It’s free to join and you do not need to pay to start building networking. B.If we take a look at the stock of the entire social media network we will find that the companies are valued in the billions of dollars. It’s a booming industry. How do they make money? Reasons A.First thing, social networks start with funding from Venture capitalists. a. Facebook & Google are the great example. They can reach very large audience at a very low cost. b. Creative Products & Promotions for example face book’s gifts. B.Data mining a. Data is the base of any business. It is potentially very valuable for companies’ growth. b. Some companies are â€Å"eavesdropping† on conversations, reading what users are saying about their products or competitor’s product. For Example Yelp, Twitter C. Advertising & fees the most common way for websites to generate revenue. a. A social networking site like Facebook has millions of active users. Access to that enormous user base is a valuable commodity. b. Charging for membership fees: To use certain features of the site they ask for the upgrade. For example, linked in. Linked in withhold key features from users until they choose to upgrade to a premium account. I hope this gives you a sense of why the market shares are in billions for these sites and where social networks are and where they are going to be in future. It is a growing industry and one can actually start making money from social networking sites. Invest your time learning how to make money with this.

Food Security Bill Essay

The bill was truncated from the NAC version at the first stage when the government finalized it and then the parliamentary standing committee went along similar lines and recommended further paring down of the benefits. Sources said concerns were raised by the Congress leadership about reducing existing benefits under the Antodaya Anna Yojana to the 2. 5 crore poorest families as well as the recommendation of the standing committee to remove the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) from the mandate of the bill, which was advised by the women and child development ministry. Sources said the party leadership was unhappy with the move to reduce existing entitlements under UPA’s flagship scheme instead of providing larger benefits. The government is likely to revise the bill keeping these views in mind and look at a much higher coverage in at least the 250 poorest districts of the country. The standing committee had recommended providing 5 kg of rations per person to 75% of rural population and 50% of urban India – a formula the government was happy with till the party leadership intervened. The standing committee had recommended doing away with two categories of beneficiaries with differential benefits – a move the government had contemplated anyway after having sent the bill to Parliament. But curtailing the total number of beneficiaries and reducing the benefits to the poorest has not found acceptance with the party leadership, sources said. The government could now consider restoring the monthly allocation to the poorest back to 35 kg of rations per family. Under an apex court order, the poorest and most disadvantaged are provided 35 kg rations at present. With the party keen to see the bill in Parliament during the budget session, a revised version could see the ICDS scheme coming back under the purview of the bill as a legally guaranteed right along with other food delivery mechanisms such as community kitchens. The UPA has already been caught on the back foot with opposition-ruled states providing cheaper rations to greater numbers under their own schemes following the lead of Chhattisgarh. The delay in pushing the bill through, coupled with the constant and often publicly expressed differences between different arms of the government and the UPA on the shape of the legislation have taken the sheen off UPA-2’s big ticket scheme Food Security Bill is affordable The subsidies meant for the poor are always under attack, while the rest are able to retain their privileges. The additional allocation in grain and money terms will neither distort the grain market nor place a burden on the fisc. Many recent commentators have portrayed the National Food Security Bill (NFSB) as an â€Å"unbearable burden† on the exchequer. The facts, however, do no substantiate the claim. The NFSB has been trashed from time to time in the English dailies. For instance, Business Line (March 21, 2013) published an article titled â€Å"Food Security Bill will torpedo Budget†. Another national daily claims that the Bill has a â€Å"fundamental flaw† that places â€Å"an unbearable burden† and â€Å"distorts agriculture† (Indian Express, March 19, 2013). Quite often, the claims are partly due to a misconception that the government is making new financial and grain commitments under the NFSB. In fact, the NFSB does little more than turning into legal entitlements pre-existing food security schemes such as the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Scheme, Public Distribution System (PDS) and maternity entitlements. Some commentators have said that it is precisely the legal commitment that will lead to problems in the future — for example, the fear of the emergence of a government monopoly in the grain market. This fear is not borne out by the facts. Under the PDS, ICDS and MDM, the government currently allocates about 58 million tonnes of grain. To meet this commitment, the government currently procures about 30 per cent of grain. The NFSB commits 62 million tonnes, i. e. , an additional 4 million tonnes. The Budget of 2013-14 allocates Rs. 31,000 crore for two children’s food schemes — school meals and the ICDS which reaches children under six. The Budget allocation for the food subsidy in 2013-14 is Rs 90,000 crore. According to our estimates, the food subsidy will increase from Rs 80,000 crore (in 2012-13) to Rs 1,11,221 crore, under the NFSB. Thus, the NFSB implies an increase of just over Rs 30,000 crores in financial terms and 4 million tonnes in real (grain) terms. Can India afford this? Speaking at a panel discussion at IIT Delhi in February, Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said â€Å"it would be dishonest† to say that we cannot afford the Food Bill, and that the subsidies that we need to target are those enjoyed by the middle classes (e. g. , fuel). Speaking at the same discussion, Amartya Sen made a pertinent point — that the reason why it is more difficult to reduce subsidies enjoyed by the middle classes (fuels such as LPG, petrol and diesel) is that the beneficiaries of those are more vocal than the rural poor or children under six who benefit from the food subsidies. This point is well illustrated by the events following last year’s Budget. The Budget 2012-13 announced a 1 per cent excise duty on unbranded jewellery and doubled custom duty on gold to 4 per cent. Gold is the country’s second biggest import, after crude oil. This burden on the current account deficit was an important reason for doubling the customs duty. Following this, the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation and others initiated a strike which went on for 21 days. They argued that the industry, including the â€Å"large† number of people it employs, and buyers of gold, would suffer. A massive media campaign was launched, following which the Finance Minister withdrew the excise duty. According to the revenue foregone statement presented along with the Budget 2013-14, the revenue foregone from the gold and diamond industry for the previous financial year was Rs. 5,000 crore. Such tax breaks are often justified on the grounds of the employment potential of the gems and jewellery industry. According to Invest India, a website of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, â€Å"The sector provides employment to around 1. 8 million people. In the next five years, the sector is expected to create additional employment for around 1. 1 million people. † According to the National Sample Survey Organisation, 2009-10, the size of the Indian workforce is between 430-471 million persons. If the gems and jewellery industry employs 3 million people as per the Ministry’s target, this would be 0. per cent of the workforce. An industry that employs less than one per cent of the Indian workforce is currently enjoying tax benefits amounting to Rs 65,000 crore (nearly 20 per cent of all revenue foregone). The Food Bill will benefit 67 per cent of the population at an additional cost of Rs 30,000 crore, yet it is said that it will â€Å"torpedo† the Budget. If anything, the NFSB does not go far enough. The NFSB tabled in Parliament in December 2011 included special provisions for the destitute and other vulnerable groups (e. g. , community kitchens and social security pensions). These have been discarded in the version cleared by Cabinet on March 19, 2013. In many rural areas, the Block is already too far to go to complain, yet for violations of rights under the NFSB, grievance redressal only begins at the District level. Viewed in this comparative perspective (for example, it is approximately 1 per cent of the GDP), few can question the affordability or desirability of the NFSB. In absolute terms it is not a small amount. One might argue whether such expenditure is worth it, given the â€Å"fact† that the programmes in its ambit, for example, the PDS, are â€Å"dysfunctional† (Indian Express, March 19, 2013). However, recent data from the National Sample Survey of 2004-05 and 2009-10 suggest that while the functioning of the PDS is far from perfect, we do need to update our â€Å"facts†. In joint research with Jean Dreze, we show that the implicit subsidy from the PDS eliminates 18 per cent (14 per cent) of the â€Å"poverty gap† — or the difference between the poverty line level of income and the median income (or monthly per capita consumption expenditure) of poor households — among poor rural (urban) households. Again, there are marked inter-State contrasts — in Tamil Nadu the corresponding figure is 60 per cent and in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh it is nearly 40 per cent. The real question then is not whether India can afford to have a right to food but as the Food Minister said in a recent interview, â€Å"Can we afford not to? † Food as a right In its latest form, the National Food Security Bill, 2013 promises to address the extreme irony of an ambitious nation holding mountains of food in storage, while masses of its people are undernourished or even starving. The right to food is finally on the threshold of being legislated. Every step taken to widen the coverage of food security schemes is an advance. Yet, the empirical truth is that incremental measures at targeting the needy are a poor substitute for a cohesive, rights-based universal system of food entitlements. There are, no doubt, many positives to the new legislation, such as coverage of up to 75 per cent of eligible priority households in rural areas, the importance given to women as the head of the household for issue of ration cards, inclusion of pregnant and lactating women for free meals (some in government wanted to take away this entitlement from women ho bear more than two children but the idea was sensibly dropped), and setting up of State Food Commissions to investigate violations of entitlements. Under the proposed law, it will be up to the States to frame criteria and choose the priority households for food entitlements, an exercise that will inevitably be accompanied by the well-documented troubles associated with targeting any welfare scheme. Exclusion of any deserving household is unfair and divisive. It poses a challenge to States that wish to provide universal access, an issue that is bound to be felt acutely in urban areas attracting tens of thousands of migrant labourers. The Centre is unwilling to countenance a Universal Public Distribution System on the ground that too much money is involved. Even under the latest Bill, it is argued, the exchequer would have to bear a heavy expenditure of Rs. 1. 24 lakh crore. Yet, the government has not hesitated to build up expensive food stocks over the years, some of which is left to rot, mainly to pay the high support prices demanded by influential sections of the farm lobby. Moreover, the policy orientation is disproportionately favourable towards some sectors such as infrastructure, compared to food and health care. Evidently, the Food Bill can and should do a lot more, to become near-universal and win over sceptics such as Tamil Nadu, which has opposed it on the ground that it is inferior to the universal PDS in the State. Also noteworthy is the fact that the Chhattisgarh Food Security Act has done better than the Centre’s proposed law in some respects — by supplying subsidised pulses and covering 90 per cent of households, for example.

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