The Cabinet has cleared the Food Ordinance. The government called for a cabinet meeting and cleared the ordinance, believed to be top most on its agenda. Facing opposition from allies and opposition parties the Samajwadi Party, the Left parties and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had on June 13 deferred a proposal to consider the ordinance route to give effect to the bill for its passage in parliament.

The bill aims to give legal rights to 67% of the population over a uniform quantity of five kilos of food grains per individual per month at a fixed price of Rs 1 to Rs 3 a kilo through ration shops. The bill goes further than what the public distribution system (PDS) now provides by giving food grains cheap and by taking the individual as the basis for deciding the quantity of food grains given