Abundance is not necessarily good news. Don’t we know that all too well by now?
Someone who likes to repeat his examples will refer us to the increasingly increasing wealth of the lucky few which has made the gap between the haves and the have-nots seem larger than ever. In a society that has newly acquired the courage to aspire, the gap cannot be ignored for too long a time. This much, societies across the world have sooner or later found out.
Anyway, the fallout of inequality of wealth is not the subject under the scanner here. As stated, that was the done-to-death example the imagined someone would present to a vexed audience.
The downright truth is almost never palatable. Gulp down is more like it.
Then, when it comes to rotten grains, even gulping down is not an option. Grains that are rotten must be wasted and consigned to monetarily expensive and environmentally unsound disposal processes.
Over the last ten years, more than 10 lakh tonnes of foodgrains have rotted in the godowns of Food Corporation of India (FCI). Those foodgrains, worth several hundred crore of rupees, could have fed over one crore hungry people for a year. It will be repetitive to dismiss this couple of facts as colossal wastage. It is inhuman, more than anything else, in a country where the numbers of the hungry are a reflection of devastating realities and a mere matter of statistics for those who take gourmet food for granted.
The foodgrains damages mentioned above were suffered despite the FCI spending an estimated Rs 242 crore (Rs 2.42 billion) while trying to prevent any loss of foodgrains during storage. Add to that another Rs 2.59 crore that was spent just to dispose off the rotten foodgrains.
In 2008, the FCI informed that 183,000 tonnes of wheat, 395,000 tonnes of rice, 22 thousand tonnes of paddy and 110 tonnes of maize were damaged between 1997 and 2007. During the same period, in the northern region — UP, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi — the damage incurred was 700,000 tonnes. The PSU spent Rs 87.15 crore (Rs 871 million) to prevent the loss besides spending over Rs 60 lakh (Rs 6 million) to dispose off the damaged food grain.
In August last year, several newspapers brought to mainstream notice that thousands of tonnes of grain were rotting in the open in Punjab and other states because of insufficient godown facilities. One NDTV report showed dogs eating grain in Uttar Pradesh, where poverty and malnourishment are endemic. Another showed officials trying to burn grain because they had not been able to distribute it to families entitled to free rations. None of us will dispute that the farce here is larger than life.
The Supreme Court, while hearing an ongoing PIL on various food security-related issues filed by the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties, ordered the government to distribute the grain free if they were not able to store it. As it turned out, no one was the wiser in the aftermath of the vague tit-for-tat that ensued. Calm settled upon all and all was soon forgotten.
The curse of the plenty
Now, in March 2011, the year that will likely witness the country’s highest-ever wheat crop, the matter of foodgrains abundance again assumes importance. The union ministry of agriculture had in February estimated that the 2010-11 harvest of foodgrains will be, at 2,321 lakh tonnes, the second highest of all time. Of this, the rice harvest was estimated at 940 lakh tonnes and wheat at 815 lakh tonnes, a record.
So, is the government prepared to store the grain?
As of mid-February, the total effective capacity available for storage stood at less than 300 lakh tonnes, and of this, more than 75 per cent was in use. The government’s foodgrain procurement target for the upcoming season is of 263 lakh tonnes. This target can have an upward revision if harvests are higher.
AK Ganguly (nominated member of Rajya Sabha) has warned that India is sitting on a grain-bomb. ‘The country needs additional storage capacity of 1.5 lakh tonnes, and only 1 per cent was created in 2010,’ he said.
The Supreme Court bench had, in the same instance last August, asked the Centre to ensure construction of a big godown in each state besides separate godowns in different districts and divisions within the states, and expedite the computerization process of the public distribution system (PDS) to check pilferage and corruption. The measures suggested by the apex court included: (a) increase in the quantum of food supply to the population below poverty line; (b) opening fair price shops on all 30 days a month; and (c) distribute foodgrain to the deserving population at a very low cost or no cost.
The space for foodgrain storage is made available to the FCI through its own godowns and those hired by state governments, the Central Warehousing Corporation, state warehousing corporations and private parties. About 10 per cent of the total storage space is ‘cover and plinth’ (where grains are stored in plastic covered in an elevated ground). The last mentioned has been criticized by experts as being inadequate.
There has been a very slow rate of increase in the FCI’s storage capacity. It was able to add only 28,000 tonnes of constructed space between 2007 and 2010.
The union government has been trying to encourage private parties to construct godowns, which it can hire. Faced with a lackadaisical response from the private sector, the government raised the
period for which it would guarantee to hire the space from five years to seven years, to now ten years. In addition, several restrictions were dropped. The government has sanctioned the creation of 150 lakh tonnes of additional storage. As of end-February, only 1.13 lakh tonnes of storage space was constructed.
Admitting that the moisture and temperature control system of the Chinese was far superior, the then Minister of State for Food and Agriculture KV Thomas stated in June last year that India was exploring the possibility of using Chinese technology to store rice and wheat for longer periods. The minister noted that China, one of the largest producers of foodgrains in the world, managed to store 150 million tonnes of foodgrains in its godowns – which was much higher than India’s 40-60 million tonnes. He had also assured that the government would soon send a team of experts to China to study the applicability of its technology in India for largescale foodgrain storage.
Results on that front are awaited.
Meanwhile, the ministry of agriculture has recommended an enhanced subsidy for its flagship scheme, the Gramin Bhandaran Yojana (GBY), to support rural godowns, by proposing to increase the size of godowns eligible for subsidy from 10,000 tonnes to 50,000 tonnes. This capital-investment subsidy scheme for construction and renovation of rural godowns facilitates creation of scientific storage capacity. The main objective is to meet the requirements of farmers for storing farm produce, processed farm produce and agricultural inputs. It also promotes grading and standardisation, as well as stresses quality control of the agri-produce, to improve their marketability and prevent distress sale immediately after harvest.
Results will, of course, be awaited with a large degree of interest.
A grain of a thought
Juxtaposing the above state of affairs with a scenario that may at first glance appear disconnected, let us consider how the economics of the integrated child development scheme (ICDS)
works.
The ICDS is a centrally-sponsored child nutrition scheme implemented by state governments through a network of centres known as anganwadis. On paper, the 36-year-old ICDS is targeted at about 7.3 crore children between 0-6 years who are required to be given 500-600 kilo calories a day, with a spending of Rs 4 to Rs 6 per child. However, the government’s own study has said thatonly 31.1 per cent of the targeted children receive supplementary nutrition.
If Rs 6 as the daily budget for a child’s food needs seems to somewhat defy logic, think in terms of ‘paise’. Indeed, in Tamil Nadu, which leads in implementing the integrated child development scheme, 55 paise is all that is allocated towards purchase of vegetables, fuel and condiments per child a day in an anganwadi. Here’s the break-up: 25 paise for vegetables, 19 paise for fuel and 11 paise for condiments. The rice and dal is procured from the PDS.
In a country where 46 per cent children below three years are underweight, the rotten tale of foodgrains storage is a joke sans the laughs and with nothing redeeming about it.
Is it not thinkable that the surplus grains in, say, Punjab be transported to the anganwadis in Tamil Nadu, so that the supervisor at a given anganwadi does not have to compromise on either the quantity or the quality of food fed to the children? What comes in the way of implementing something like this? Fifty-five thousand metric tonnes of food grains did rot in Punjab last year. Who is to assure that the magnitude of loss will be any lesser this year? Who will take charge of transporting the surplus foodgrains to the ones who need it the most?
The buzz around foodgrain storage and the threat of rot is starting to pick up. The consequence of a bumper harvest and inadequate storage will once more have us reading those familiar headlines in the papers. There will be criticisms galore. National indignation will be at an all-time high. Some of us will not feel the heat in any way. Inflation or not, food on the table is assured. Some of us will make do with whatever we can scramble together. The rest will retire to their beds hungry as usual.
Somewhere else, copious amounts of foodgrains will lie in majestic, forbidden mounds.
