The Supreme Court on the issue of food wastage

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INDIA FOOD WASTAGE: No more wastage please
The Supreme Court recently suggested the Centre to distribute food stock free to the needy instead of letting it rot in the public godowns. The apex court, in a written letter to the government, said: 'Don't allow food grain to be wasted, give it away to the hungry population.' This is the most recent instance of the Supreme Court showing concern over governmental apathy.

India is an iconic example when it comes to wastage of food grain. The public storage facility across the country is terrible. A reply to an RTI query revealed that over 1.3 million tonnes of food grain (which comprises 183,000 tonnes of wheat, 395,000 tonnes of rice, 22,000 tonnes of paddy and 110 tonnes of maize) was wasted in the godowns of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) in a span of 10 years from 1997 to 2007. It was enough to feed 10 million people for one year. Besides, the Centre had spent about Rs. 259 crore to clean away rotten food grain. India loses over Rs. 58,000 crore of food grain every year due to wastage. Even the government accepted recently that 61,000 tonnes of food grain had gotten spoilt in godowns because of little or no protection. High-yielding states like Punjab and Haryana were struggling to save 15.5 million tonnes of food grain kept open in tarpaulins. This at a time when over 200 million Indians go to bed without food. The country ranks 66th among 88 countries in 2008 on the Global Hunger Index. Currently, the Indian government distributes its food stock through the Public Distribution System to the poor. Unfortunately, widespread corruption has befuddled the PDS in our country. A research, jointly conducted by the Transparency International and Centre for Media Studies in 2005, revealed that about Rs 21,069 crore was paid as bribes by Indians to avail of any one of 11 public services. Over 1.5 crore households paid bribes in 2004. Sadly, researches have also shown that states with higher poverty paid more bribe in PDS. Households pay on an average Rs. 245 every year as bribe. This means that India's poor are paying Rs.358 crore annually as bribe.

While Mr. Pawar says the issue is exaggerated, it's high time that the Centre should take up the issue of inadequate public storage capacity seriously. India's storage capacity is 60 million tonnes while nationwide food production has increased to 228 million tonnes. China's food storage capacity is 150 million tonnes. Surprisingly, neither the FCI nor Food Ministry have revealed plans to improve the storage, although the Ministry of Agriculture did recently promise to implement world-class storage facilities. The government also passed the Food Security Bill recently. These are all signs of commitments. But will they be enough?

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