1. khaleej times Monday, September 6, 2010
18 india
Foodgrains rot in Indian warehouses, while millions go hungry
and thousands die of malnutrition and insufficient food
◆ Millions of tonnes of foodgrains
worth a whopping $20 billion are rotting
in warehouses with the government been
not able to distribute them among the
poor and needy.
◆ India proposes National Food Security
Act. The opposition parties call for a
broader Right to Food Act under the Right
to Food campaign for the impoverished.
◆ The government assures setting
up decentralised systems of procurement
and distribution of foodgrains.
◆ The Supreme Court says it is a crime
if children aged three to six years are not
provided with nutritious cooked meal,
and food supplements, and if children
aged six to 14 years do not have access to
nutritious cooked mid-day meal.
◆ For every Rs4 spent on the PDS,
only Re1 reaches the poor, and 57 per
cent of the PDS foodgrains do not reach
the intended people, says the Planning
Commission.
The rotting billions
Ravi S Jha
new delhi -- A complete overhaul-
ing of the Public Distribution System
(PDS) is must for India’s food securi-
ty,statesthegovernmentadaybefore
the Supreme Court hears a writ peti-
tiononcitizens’RighttoFoodtoday.
The government has decided to set
up a panel to revamp the PDS, which
willrecommendmeasurestomapout
a wholesale revamp of the PDS, and
work out means and mechanism to
augment warehouses for better stor-
ageoffoodgrains.
Such is the concern over impover-
ished going hungry in India despite
over abundance of foodgrains that
many political parties are now in fa-
vour of disbanding the present sys-
tem of distribution saying the gov-
ernment should come up with a new
policy altogether so that the poor are
abletogetthebenefits.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
has referred to the suggestions made
bymanychiefministerstorevampthe
PDS to prevent largescale leakages
and diversion of foodgrains. Dr Singh
has also underlined the urgency of at-
tracting private sector investment in
agricultural infrastructure, and the
facilitationofintraandinterstatefree
movement of agricultural commodi-
ties.
Thereisanincreasingconcernover
theroleofthePDSthattopofficialsin
thegovernmentsaycannowbeanaly-
sed in terms of its potential to revive
Indian agriculture. For this, reforms
such as increasing
procurement from
a wider network of
states across the
country, setting up
decentralised sys-
tems of procure-
ment and distribu-
tion etc. need to be
pursued.
It is said that the
PDS evolves as a
major instrument
of the govern-
ment’s economic
policy for ensuring
food security to
the poor. It is the
largest foodgrain
distribution
Apex court observations:
Inacountrywhereadmittedly
peoplearestarving,itisacrimeto
wasteevenasinglegrain.”
“Ifyoucannotstorethem,
giveittothepeopletoeat.”
“Tellyourministernottomakeanysuch
comment.Whatwehavesaidisanorder
andnotasuggestion.Lethim
notmisunderstandourorder.”
Notagrainof
3,000children die every day in
India owing to the lack of
food and inadequate diet
$ 20b
of foodgrains rotting in
government warehouses
at present
Ravi S Jha
M
ILLIONS of tonnes of
foodgrain is rotting in
warehouses across In-
dia, and with abundant
monsoon this year,
a bumper harvest is just a few weeks
away.Yet,likeeveryyear,Indiawillhave
1.5 million deaths on account of malnu-
tritionandinsufficientfood.
Some 3,000 children die every day in
India owing to the lack of food and in-
adequate diet. Maharashtra -- the state
where India’s high-profile Minister for
Agriculture Sharad Pawar comes from
- alone has over 45,000 child malnutri-
tion deaths every year, says the World
HealthOrganisation’slatestfigures.
But despite having enough food for
distribution among the country’s poor,
the government’s premise has lead to
a conclusion that seems logically un-
acceptable and self-contradictory to
everyone - even to the Supreme Court
that recently lashed out at the govern-
ment for its failure in providing food to
itscitizen.
An application under the Right to In-
formation (RTI) Act has revealed that
heaps of foodgrains are rotting in Food
Corporation of India (FCI) warehouses
across the country due to apathetic at-
titude of the federal government. The
enquiry found out that as at December
31 last year, some 1.06 billion tonnes of
foodgrainsrottedinFCIdepots.
“Thiswasenoughtofeedover600,000
people for more than 10 years,” the Su-
premeCourtsaidmakingaseriousinter-
ventioninthecase.Inthelastsixmonths
alone,therehasbeensomuchfoodstock
pilingatthewarehousesthattheauthori-
tieshadnowheretoaccommodatethem.
The stocks in millions of tonnes
lay in open outside the warehouses in
packsacks until the monsoon arrived.
Hit by rain, these foodgrains today are
decomposing with smell so strong that
it can be felt from miles away from the
warehouses, a daily reported about an
FCIwarehouseinHaryanastate.
Currently, 49,000 tonnes of
foodgrain is seen rotting in Punjab. In
Uttar Pradesh, 100,000 bags of wheat
are left in the open despite there be-
ing space in the FCI to accommodate.
In Haryana, 300,000 bags of wheat are
lying in the open with floodwaters in-
undating the stockpile. Some 450,000
bags of wheat, worth Rs250 million are
damagedinrainsinUttarPradesh.
The government now has declared all
of them unfit even for animal consump-
tion, let alone for humans. Not that the
government wasn’t aware of these rot-
ting foodgrains. The RTI application
divulges that between 1997 and 2007,
183,000tonnesofwheat,633,000tonnes
ofrice,220,000tonnesofpaddyand11.1
milliontonnesofmaizewereleftrotting
indifferentFCIwarehouses.
At a time when cost of living has es-
calated beyond proportion with rising
food prices hauling up the food infla-
tion to a record high, the government’s
failuretousefoodgrainsadequatelyhas
comeasa‘nationalshame’.It’scriminal
neglect,seniorpoliticalleaders,cutting
acrosspartylines,admitopenly.
How can such neglect happen? Ask
Minister for Agriculture Pawar, who’s
already under flack from the govern-
ment as well as the opposition parties
forhisallegedmishandlingontheprice
rise issue. “How can you blame me alone for the
neglect?” he tells this correspondent, asserting
that the government is doing everything pos-
sibletoreachfoodtothepoor.
On the apex court directive to the govern-
ment to ensure free distribution of foodgrains
tothepoorinsteadofallowingthemtorotinthe
warehouses, Pawar says: “First we will have to
ensurewhetheritisfitforhumanconsumption.
Sofarweknowthatitisnotedibleanymore.”
But what is the government doing to see that
such neglect never happens again or improve
upon the country’s archaic and severely ailing
public distribution system? Pawar says: “The
governmentisfullyawareofthefactthatPDSis
inconsistent. Even the prime minister has talk-
edaboutit.Wewillhavetostopsuchasituation
fromarisingagain.”
The entire system smacks of inefficiency and
corruption. In the northern region, the total ca-
pacityofFCIwarehousesis12.75milliontonnes
of foodgrains, while only 11.12 million tonnes
are stored. In the southern region, the total
capacity of the covered FCI warehouses is 5.74
million tonnes, while only 5.42 million tonnes
arestocked.
In the eastern states like West Bengal, Bi-
har, Jharkhand and even part of eastern Uttar
Pradesh, the total covered warehouses are 2.4
million tonnes but the stocks held is just 1.71
million tonnes. Similarly in the north-east-
ern states, the FCI warehouses have 448,000
tonnes of capacity but it can store foodgrains
only to the tune of 350,000 tonnes. In Maharas-
traandGujarat,thereisacapacityof4.33million
tonnes for storage but only 3.23 million tonnes
arestored.
RTI applicant D A Bhattacharya, whose query
andsubsequentdisclosurehaslefttheSupreme
Court stunned, says despite FCI having enough
capacity to store large amounts of foodgrains,
theinefficiencyonthepartofthegovernmentis
for everyone to see. “It is the government’s re-
sponsibility to see that there is no mismanage-
mentoffoodstock,”saysBhattacharya.
Pawar’s remark that it would not be pos-
sible to distribute foodgrains free, instead of
allowing it to rot, has further left the apex
court bench, hearing a case related to cor-
ruption in the FCI, unnerved. Even when
the court asks the government to distrib-
ute rotting foodgrains to poor for free,
the minister says it won’t be possible,
andwithfaultlessaudacity.
But it is here where the Supreme
Court’srulinghascomeintoplay:anan-
gry bench has shot a directive to the gov-
ernment’s law officer to tell Pawar that
it was not making a “suggestion”, as the
ministerhasputit,butan“order”from
thecourtkeepinginviewthepricerise,
unavailabilityoffoodamongpoor,and
malnutritiondeathsinthecountry.
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 196 of
2001 concerning Citizens’ Right to
Food has been listed for hearing
on Monday in the Supreme Court.
Legal experts say that the Right
to Food is included in the funda-
mental ‘Right to Life’ enshrined
in Article 21 of the Indian Con-
stitution. The government’s
failure on this front is not
only shocking, but is a crimi-
nal neglect, says the court.
—ravi@khaleejtimes.com
Indiaplansoverhaulof
publicdistribution
network of its kind in the
world with over 550,000
fair price shops that are en-
titled to provide foodgrains
at a subsidised rate to people
belowpovertyline(BPL).
But now realising that the
PDS has been failing to serve
the poor, and the main reason for
short supply of ration is diversion
of foodgrains to open market, as
well as inefficiency in handling the
foodgrains at waehouses, the gov-
ernmentfeelsthattherehastobea
consensusamongallthestategov-
ernmentsonoverhaulingthePDS.
The government did start issuing
distinctive ration cards to families
living BPL, and from 1997, it intro-
duced Targeted Public Distribution
System (TPDS), under which the
states are required to formulate and
implement foolproof arrangements
for identification of the poor, but it
repeatedly failed to ensure that the
foodreachesthem.
The opposition parties have stat-
ed that any new government initia-
tive will be a small price to pay to
make India hunger-free. “If fellow
citizens remain hungry, it under-
mines the nation’s productivity,”
said senior Bharatiya Janata party
leaderArunJaitely.
Jaitely says the consequence of a
purposeful Right to Food campaign
demands a broader Right to Food
Act,andnotanarrowNationalFood
Security Act (NFSA) proposed by
the government. The BJP says the
narrow nature of the NFSA can
be gauged from its provision that
entitles each BPL household to a
monthly ration of 25 kg of foodgrain
atRs3akg.
The United Progressive Alliance
government’s National Advisory
Council,underitschairpersonSonia
Gandhi, has worked out the amount
of foodgrain to be distributed to
each BPL family, and its economic
costundertheFoodSecurityAct.
The government will be meeting
againthismonthtodiscusswhether
anincreasecanbemadeinthequan-
tumoffoodgrainstobedistributed.