Joginder Singh, IPS(Retd.)
In the play Hamlet, one of the character mentions about something rotten in the State of Denmark. When this observation was made, Shakespeare did not have in mind the rotting food grains, for millions of dollars, which could feed under nourished and starving, 140 million Indians for a month.
Infact in August, 2010, the Supreme Court of India, had asked the Government, to give away, food grains, which were rotting, due to neglect among the poor at “low cost or no cost”.
This would have given relief to the country’s starving millions and also solved the government’s problem of preserving food grains after record procurement.
The following facts speak for themselves for the food storage of the 59 million tonnes of grain stored by the FCI and state agencies across India, 42 million tonnes is in covered buildings. Grain stored under tarpaulin has been rising. It was 9.4 million tonnes in 2008; 16 million tonnes in 2009 and 17.8 million tonnes in 2010 (as on June 1).
The Food Corporation of India had reported, to Food Ministry in June 2012, that the total stocks across the country in the central pool are expected to be an all-time record of 750.17 lakh tonnes – almost one lakh tonne more than last year.
It also added that “FCI and state agencies will neither have the storage capacity nor the manpower to manage such a substantial increase in stock in central pool,” It expected, that by the beginning of June, 2012, 472.9 lakh tonnes of grain would be in granaries of FCI and the State governments in Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana alone.
This is 69 lakh tonnes more than what was kept in these States, at the same time, last year. It is clear that FCI and the state agencies will be faced with unprecedented problems of shortage of storage capacity resulting in large stock of wheat in CAP (kept in open plinths covered with tarpaulin) in Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. It is also possible that substantial quantity may have to be stored in unscientific plinths. By Government standards, no grain should be left out in the open for more than a year.
When monsoon begins to lash across the country, in 2012, 231.82 lakh tonnes of wheat will be lying under the sun on the plinths in the three States.
In order to prevent damage to stocks (especially stock in CAP stored for more than one year), it is necessary that allocation of foodgrain to state governments is suitably enhanced”.
The GoM on food has rejected the food ministry’s proposal to distribute more grains to states citing fiscal constraints, despite FCI warning the grains could literally rot in the open godowns of the State Government and the Centre in the three States when monsoon hits the country. This has been stressed by the Punjab Chief Minister Sh. Badal in July 2012
The Planning Commission has accepted the Tendulkar Committee report which holds 37 per cent of people in India below the poverty line, an increase of 10 per cent.
Two other reports, of the Government appointed committees have pegged poverty at much higher levels. The Arjun Sengupta report had says 77 per cent of Indians live on less than Rs 20 a day while the N C Saxena Committee report had said 50 per cent of people live below poverty.
The present food subsidy bill is about Rs. 55000 Cores and is likely, to go up, by over four times, when the right to food becomes law. If one goes by the figures of Transparency International, which has given 32 marks out of 100 to India
In Corruption Perception Index, nearly 68% of the subsidy is siphoned off both in kind and cash and sold in Black market.
While people die of hunger, the Government sits atop a mountain of food grains. The storage facilities of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) are full of grains, some of it rotting and rat-infested and some of stocks are likely to reach that state soon .
A Parliamentary Committee had observed that the rotten food grain was so rotten, that even the animals would not eat it and it better be dumped in the sea. A crazy suggestion on the face, of it, but what else could the Parliamentary Committee do, if the Government could not construct or hire storage space.
A wag put it, that so much is the quantity of food kept in the open, that if each bag was stacked one upon the other, there was no need to launch a scientific expedition to put a man on the moon. You could simply walk to the moon and come back, on the food grain bags
Another report, of the Standing Committee of Parliament, estimated that the Government was spending Rs 62,00 Crores every year to maintain these food stocks.
The Union Minister of Food, has admitted, as late as on 20th June, 2012, that Over 6.6 million tonnes of wheat worth over Rs 1,100 crore of the Government stock lying in the open run high risk of damages during the monsoon season.
At present, the Government has a stock of 82.3 million tonnes against the storage capacity of 64 million tonnes. Of 50 million tonnes of wheat procured by the Government, 27 million tonnes is kept in the open, of which 6.6 million tonnes is lying in an unscientific way.
The poor and hungry live on the hope and green garden shown by the Government for the bright future.
It is a common sense, that unless we keep our goods and articles safe in our own place, , they are likely to be stolen. The Problem of the Government is that in it, left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.
Whether for individual or the Government, the ‘Will’ is the keystone in the arch of achievement .
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