Saturday, November 19, 2011

People have to pay for the inefficiency of the Department of Food, FCI and CWC

The rate of inflation in India is touching new highs. 
It can be argued that this inflation is due to the
rise in the prices of essential commodities especially
foodgrains because these prices affect the prices of
all other commodities as every person involved in the
production and sale of these commodities, has to
purchase foodgrains for himself also which are
available at high prices. Some people believe that
because of the shortage of supply of foodgrains,
Government should have gone for imports at the right
time when the prices in the international markets were
lower and distributed the imports through public
distribution system to reduce inflation.

However, there is enough production of foodgrains in
India to feed all its population but people do not
have the purchasing power to buy food and there is so
much wastage of food as a result of food wasted in
marriage parties, food eaten by the rodents and lack
of storage capacity for storing the foodgrains. Both
the Public Sector Undertakings of the Government viz.,
Food Corporation of India and the Central Warehousing
Corporation do not have adequate facilities as well as
enough capacity to store the foodgrains in their
warehouses.  The result is that a large amount of
foodgrains go waste as it is kept in the open due to
lack of storage capacity.  There have been many audit
paras in this regard in the past but the situation
does not seem to have improved.  

The officials of Food Corporation of India purchase
bad quality of foodgrains at the rate announced for
good quality of these foodgrains from the farmers
against the payment of bribes.  Sometimes, the
foodgrain purchased is of such poor quality that many
people refuse to buy it.

Regarding import of foodgrains and building of buffer
stock, there is a full fledged Division in the
Department of Food to prepare food budget and make
assessment for import of foodgrains.  Apparently, it
is the inefficiency of this Division which has
resulted in the current high prices of foodgrains.

Bufferstock of foodgrains is poorly maintained and
goes rotten lying in the open or wrongfully stored in
the warehouses of Food Corporation of India and the
Central Warehousing Corporation.

It is an open secret that Public Distribution System
is a complete failure and the food earmarked for North
Eastern States as well as for UP and Bihar States is
smuggled into Bangladesh and Nepal.  It is also
surprising that despite being short of foodgrains
because of the reasons pointed out above, we export
foodgrains to Nepal.  

So, in my opinion, people have to pay the price for
the inefficiency of the Department of Food and its two
Public Undertakings, the Food Corporation of India and
the Central Warehousing Corporation.
 
Satbir Singh Bedi

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