By Naresh Kumar Sharma
CHANDIGARH: The successive governments have come and gone at centre but the problem of food grain storage continues to persist for years. Due to lack of proper and scientific storage of food grains in the country, huge stocks of food grain go absolutely waste in various parts of the country including Punjab.
It is ironical that despite bumper crop production of food grains in the country, still there are significant number of people in some parts of the country who die due to hunger and starvation. This is all happening due to mismanagement in regard to storing of food grains.
Not only this, it is extremely unfortunate that government officials have admitted to the fact that there is a lack of enough grain storage and distribution infrastructure in the major grain-producing areas of the country.
On the other hand, the prices of food grain items continue to soar owing to shortage of food supplies.We come across images on television channels showing of rotting wheat and other grains lying scattered in the open in various grain storage sites with no precautionary measures taken against rats, disease droplets and so on..
India has more than adequate food grains to sustain its burgeoning population but the government needs to come out with cogent policy to ensure scientific and effective way of storing food-grain items.
As the wheat procurement season is coming into full peak, problem of proper storage space has once again come to haunt the states of Punjab and Haryana contributing over 70 per cent to the nation’s foodgrain stock.
In Punjab, 98.8 lakh metric tonne (LMT) of wheat has been procured till May 1. Agro-experts believe that the procurement would go beyond 115 LMT, surpassing last year’s procurement record of 110 LMT.
But as it happens every year, the lack of proper storage capacity would lead to massive loss of wheat to the tune of many crores.
At present, the storage capacity of Punjab is only 200 LMT and with stocks of previous years and seasons are yet to be cleared more than half of the capacity.
Similarly, Haryana Haryana is also grappling very hard to manage its storage of wheat. The Haryana government would also reportedly take up the matter with centre government for immediate start of ferrying wheat to the states having shortage of foodgrain.
Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab, Sukhbir Singh Badal has blamed the centre for not having the proper mechanism for storage leading to massive wastage of foodgrain.
However, Punjab Congress legislature party (CLP) leader Sunil Jakhar has castigated the Punjab government for its callous attitude towards the storage of foodgrain in the state. He said that Parkash Singh Badal led SAD-BJP government has been heaping blame on the Congress and the Centre from time to time for not showing due concern to the plight of farmers has been indulging in double standards on the storage of foodgrain.
He said that the Food Corporation of India (FCI) had sanctioned covered godowns which can store nearly 51 lakh MT of grains, for Punjab. He said that it is really shocking that a capacity of 12.5 lakh MT of this covered storage is already available in the state and the FCI had approved its takeover, the Punjab government has been found to wanting to take care of the fresh arrival of wheat stocks in selecting some specific areas for storing it.
However, amidst the blame-game, farmers continue to suffer as their hard labour is being wasted which is also resulting in depriving the poor their right for food.
