From godowns to stomachs

The Supreme Court has merely used common sense when it ordered the government to distribute the foodgrains rotting in the warehouses of the Food Corporation of India among the poor at a low price or even free of cost. What is astonishing is that the government has been waiting for the verdict all these weeks, instead of taking a quick, proactive decision. The issue might have been brought into public domain by focused coverage in the media, but the government all through knew that 17.8 million metric tonnes of grains are stored in the open and are exposed to the elements. When it admits that 50,000 tonnes of wheat have rotted and are unfit for human consumption, it overlooks the fact that the condition of the remaining quantity is not good either, as it has already weathered one monsoon.

For a government which believed that its duty was over once the procurement was completed, it would be a Herculean task to implement the court’s order as it would involve taking the grains to the doorsteps of the needy. The court wants the public distribution system to function on all days and the grains distributed through it when the system is simply non-existent or non-functional in a large part of the country. At the root of the problem was the government’s unwillingness to bear the cost of transportation and distribution. Implementation of the order would entail several short-term and long-term measures like beefing up the storage facilities. Large silos need to be constructed in all states so that there is no need for open storage.

Also, the present practice of storing three times the required quantity of buffer stock, which is 21.2 million MT, needs to be reviewed. Any surplus grain in the warehouse is an admission of the government’s failure in a country, where millions of people are not assured of two square meals a day. It is in the name of the proposed food security Bill that the government has been going slow on distribution of foodgrains. The Bill is so watered down that the right to food will remain a chimera for a large section of the people, who do not have the capacity to buy food even at `3 a kg. Also, a large number of people have been excluded from its purview by manipulating the norms by which the poor are divided into below and above the poverty line. Alas, hunger is the same for the BPL and the APL!