M A I N   N E W S

Poor hungry even as grain rots: MPs
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 24
CPM leader Brinda Karat, who today brought to the Rajya Sabha samples of rotten wheat and rice as proof of her special mention during the Zero Hour, challenged officials concerned to try and eat them.

Asserting that foodgrains being sent by the government to remote tribal areas are unfit for consumption, Karat demanded that the Centre should replace them with good quality grains, finding support from members cutting across the party lines. Deputy Chairman K Rahman Khan hoped that the government would take note of members’ concern over rotting of foodgrains in government godowns and supply of sub-standard foodgrains to tribal in the country.

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Karat said the government was not listening to the demand for distributing surplus foodgrains among the poor and allowing them to rot instead.

She said the government should constitute a monitoring agency to check the quality of grains. Another member AK Ganguly said the “country is sitting on a grain bomb” as good monsoon is expected to result in record wheat output of 82 million tonne in the current season while storage capacity is very low.

The country needs extra storage of 1.5 lakh tonne and one per cent construction of warehouses was completed last year, urging the government to bring out a white paper “on calamity of plenty” which the country faces.