Food Paradox of India: Hunger amidst Plenty By Luv Sharma

India is the world's second biggest grower of rice and wheat & may very well produce a record quantity of food in the 2013-14 season as monsoon covered the entire nation early.India has world's highest percentage of arable land area & second largest in total(after US) coupled by the fact that it also ranks first in gross irrigated croplands, an obvious corollary would have been the non-existence of hunger & malnourishment in India but such is the criminal & strange paradox of plenty that in india millions still go without food.Not only this to further substantiate a brilliant example of hunger amidst plenty it was ranked 66th in Global Hunger Index.Even after 45yrs of the Green Revolution India provides a unique spectre of overflowing warehouses & rotting grqins on the one hand while.millions go to bed hungry.

Spurred by the agricultural innovation & generous subsidies, India now grows so much food that it has a bigger grain of stockpile than any country except china & it exports some of it to countries like Saudi Arabia & Australia.Yet 1/5th of its people are malnourished , which is double the rate of other developing countries like Vietnam & China.This glaringly ironical situation has been under constant neglect from the government.

The explanation of this anomaly lies in the complex regulations that govern procurement & distribution .One major problem is the storage of the grains.For past 25yrs the storage capacity has not been upgraded at all.Part of the grain is officially stored outside warehouses, where chances of rotting are high.The current storage facilities are quite inadequate.Granaries are filled beyond capacity & many are in deplorable condition.The above problem is further compounded by infrastructural barriers like insufficient road network & transportation.Consider the example of punjab which has been blessed with rich & fertile soil and is popularly called as bread-basket of India.It has been reeling under inadequate incentives and investment for procurement & storage of food grains.Of 14Million ton of wheat to be purchased by State govt's food & civil supplies deptt., Punjab currently has space to store only 6Million ton.This has forced state govt to look for alternative storage spaces in empty mills,abandoned factories ,schools & even graveyards.Meanwhile its open sites are overflowing & slowly spoiling grain from previous years.So the need of the hour is to setup a network.of grain silos & warehouses & godowns across country .This would redice the burden for stock holding of wheat by the producing states and they can also be used for effective distribution among the poor.Another problem is the inefficient & corrupt system used to get the food to those who need it.Just 41.4% of the grain picked by the states from central warehouses reaches Indian homes, according to a worldbank study.Officials all along the chain, from warehouse managers to shopkeepers, steal food and sell it to the traders, pocketing tidy ,illicit profits.Many families have still not got their ration cards and they hesitate in.getting them due to bribery involved.Some States like TamilNadu & Chhatisgarh have made marked improvements by using technology to track food & have made it easier for households to get ration Cards.India should move towards giving poor cash or food stampsas US ,Mexico & other countries have done.That would eliminate mismanagement because govt would.buy and store only enough grain to insure against bad harvests thus solving the twin problem of wastage and of providing maximum outreach.

Recently food security law has been passed by government of India which gurantees 67% population nutritious food at very low prices.This is an another step towards achieving food security.If implemented correctly this law would not only help in exterminating the problem of hunger and malnourishment but also help divert the excess grain procured by the govt thereby eliminating the wastage of grains.

The visuals of food rotting speak volumes of the criminal apathy,neglect & callousness on our part with which we, as a nation have failed to address the shameful scourge of hunger.

India is facing a major food problem ,arising mainly from poor policies,infrastructure & corruption but it can be resolved with sincere efforts on the part of government by strengthening the market support system & establishing a network of storage spaces across the country.

Every piece of grain wasted is a cruel joke and a slap on the faces of millions of children living under poverty and malnourishment.Perhaps if policy makers could realise the gravity of what Gandhiji was trying to say when he said " There are people in this world  so hungry that God cannot appear for them except in the form of bread.

Perhaps its high time that India puts the national Agricultural ox before the cart of being a major global power.