Millions Go Hungry In India As Excess Grain Rots In Storage

by Ranjit Devraj

Singh was the only ruling party politician, either in the central government or in the states, who spoke candidly about the fact that the government is sitting on grain surpluses expected to reach 80 million tons even as millions of peasants suffer from a lack of food.

After newspapers and television stations showed graphic images of starvation deaths and mass deprivation, India's Supreme Court intervened on September 3 to shame the government into ensuring that the poor received their due share of grain.

Acting on a petition by a leading rights group, the People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL), the apex court observed that below-poverty-line (BPL) families were being given 25 kilograms of grain per month at four cents a kilogram, when they were entitled to 75 kilograms at the same rate.

India's granaries are bursting with more than 60 million tons of wheat and rice, and yet another bumper crop is expected to take surplus stocks well beyond 80 million tons.

With nowhere to store the grain, the government has begun to stack sacks of it on the tarmac at airfields, covered with nothing more than flimsy black plastic sheeting. Vast amounts of grain were reported to have rotted in rainy weather or been eaten by rats.

But the states apparently have neither the will nor the mechanism to get the rotting grain to the starving poor, facts which did not escape the Supreme Court.

The official apathy prompted the court to ask the PUCL to identify officers in each of the affected districts who have the "spirit, inclination and drive" to prevent further starvation deaths.

"Let us target the areas which need immediate attention, and Orissa appears to be in the greatest need," the bench consisting of Justice B.N. Kirpal and Justice Ashok Bhan told the PUCL.

Besides eastern Orissa, the court has issued notices to the governments of southern Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, western Maharashtra and Rajasthan and central, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh states to report on starvation.

None of these states could provide figures on the number of people who fell into the BPL category and were entitled to cheap foodgrain but the PUCL told the court that, in all, 200 million Indians suffered "chronic hunger."

Disaster-prone Orissa, which has a special relief commissioner, has identified the problem in the state as one of "rapacious traders and moneylenders cornering BPL grain, leaving intended beneficiaries to grub on roots and poisonous mango seeds."

That was not surprising because even India's Planning Commission has admitted that more than 30 percent of food grain meant for the public distribution system is misappropriated yearly by private traders and contractors.

Two years ago the government announced a National Storage Policy which envisaged inviting foreign investors and modern technology to efficiently move grain from the farm to consumers.

But that plan was shelved because the central government-run Food Corp of India, deemed notoriously corrupt, and the contractors and traders it works with did not find it convenient to their schemes.

As the outrage of the Supreme Court became known, the federal Ministry of Food and Civil Supplies finally got tough and made it a punishable offense for traders to divert grain from the public distribution system.

The phenomenon of continuing bumper harvests and overflowing granaries amid mass starvation has been a topic of academic discussion and newspaper reportage for at least two years now.

Last April, a group of academics from the prestigious Delhi School of Economics sent an open letter to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in a bid to get the rotting surplus stocks released to poor and starving people.

"This year, with droughts affecting large parts of the country for a second or third year in a row, undernourishment and starvation are likely to intensify. Alarming cases of starvation deaths have already been reported in several states," the April letter said.

The signatories, including well-known economists like Jean Dreze, Pulin Nayak, and Badal Mukherji, argued that the grain stocks were a burden on the economy considering that there was no possibility of export, while storage and handling costs were high.

The economists pointed out that the $2.5 billion that was being spent on "so-called food subsidy" actually went into "procuring, handling and storing food that does not reach the poor."

"Bold intervention at the highest level is imperative to avert widespread deprivation and misery," they urged in vain.

"It is shocking to see massive public resources being used to store food out of the reach of the poor," the academics said.