India's Grain Rots as Poor Starve

Kunal Biswas

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India's Grain Rots as Poor Starve

India has been accused of allowing thousands of kilos of grain to rot as millions of people go hungry.

About 400 million poor in India cannot afford to buy grain and are dependent on the government for food handouts.

To feed them, India uses a decades-old distribution system, but supplies in some warehouses are poorly maintained and have become contaminated, resulting in a huge waste of food.

Experts say there are over a billion tonnes of food grain going to waste throughout India, enough to feed over 600,000 poor for over a decade.

India's total foodgrain production in 2009-2010 was 218 million tonnes. It is understanding that to waste 1 billion tonne, India has to waste all of her foodgrain production for five consecutive years. Am I right (1 billion=5x200 million)?

GoI's estimate is 61,000 tonnes gone waste.

Al Jazeera's Nilanjan Chowdhury reports.
India's grain rots as poor starve - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English
The Indian Government doesn't want to distribute excess foodgrains to poor and needy for free because the PM Manmohan Singh thinks it will get the cost of food down and it will also get GDP down as well. Government deliberately made Public Distribution System weak so that people can't get food at low cost. This is kind of economics PM Manmohan Singh is implementing in India these days. He is only concerned about stasticis GDP industrial output stock markets. He is too influenced by American style to economics which relays more on statistics rather than welfare of poor.
Lack of infrastructure at all levels.
 

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