Power that be

Ever since Mr.Pawar has found a new avenue of enjoying gentlemanly power, the rather rustic power of feeding billion plus hungry Indians have increasingly started to take a back seat and the power to wield the hallowed willow has rightfully started to take precedence. We have experienced this for quite a few years now and the rise in food price index, accentuated by the abnormal rise in sugar prices largely has been attributed to his able stewardship of the food ministry, as and when he finds time from playing his own game of cricket. But the ICC President-hood has helped him develop an acquired skill of bowling 'doosra' and like the poor French Queen Marie Antionate, he now wonders why people who can buy cola for Rs.11, cant buy food ! Does 'Saheb", as he is known to his sycophants, have any data about the wretched cola drinkers in this country that we do not have ? Did the farmer about to commit suicide in Kalahandi or Vidarbha  wanted to have his glass of cola and not food before he died ? Mr.Pawar had his own little role to play in that contaminated-water-used-for-cola controversy that got swept under the carpet too, remember ? He might just know better.

Let us share some interesting facts about the state of sugar industry in Mr.Pawar's backyard. According to a CAG report in Maharashtra, the state has 202 co-operative sugar factories, 116 of which are loss making. Of these, till June 2006, 74 factories had negative net worth and 31 factories had to face liquidation between 1987 and 2006. 70% of these factories are controlled by the powers that be and the CAG had pulled up both the State Government and the Sugar Commissioner for not taking action against the Board of Directors of these companies. But the powerful can ignore such trivialities as this opens up the import market and also helps create a supply gap. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and leads to many sensational flag offs from  powerful men, even in speeches made inside the hallowed precincts of our democracy, to their baron brethren to freely hoard sugar and barren the sweet market.

I am sure the Supreme Court was more pained than us yesterday when they had to pull up a senior minister  for avoiding it's directive to freely distribute grains, that have been rotting in the open since 2008-09, to the poorest of hungry Indian. A national shame it is indeed that as people across the country are dyeing of hunger or are severely malnourished with enough food grain either rotting or turning into rodent food, our Great Servants are faithlessly but unfailingly attending to the lavish spread served at political iftaar parties of each other. Their gorging behind the well protected walls of Luteyns' Delhi are being dished out daily by print and electronic media for the hungry to tantalisingly savor and dream about during ramzaan. 

On Aug 19th, 2010, NDTV carried a report, which has been etched in many of our minds. Let me quote the report to refresh our memories : Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh:  Across the country, there have been reports of grain going to waste while hundreds of thousands continue to starve. The latest one comes from the state of Madhya Pradesh where a whopping 67 percent of the people live below the poverty line. On February 5, The Food Corporation of India had sent 1,100 quintals of wheat to be distributed in Khandwa's ration shops. Three days later, 39 wagons of the wheat reached the station but one wagon went missing. The FCI claimed compensation for the missing stock. Now, six months later, when the missing wagon was found, it was found that it had 85 quintals of wheat, that were rotted beyond repair. Those 85 quintals would have easily fed 250 Below Poverty Level (BPL) families for at least a month. This is just the tip of the iceberg though. 

Times Of India reported on Jul 27, 2010 that Haryana and Punjab were unable to protect or sell the 15.5 million tonnes of wheat lying in the open under tarpaulins. While Punjab admitted that 49,000 tonnnes of wheat had gone waste, the Union government warned that 1.36 lakh tonnes of wheat that it procured in 2008-09 and 27.38 lakh tonnes of wheat procured in 2009-10 had exceeded the one-year period grains can ideally be stored without rotting. 

Does this ring a bell ? Does this power the juggernaut to roll and try to alleviate the poor man's woes ? On 28th Aug, 2010, The Deccan Herald writes and I quote :' Good and normal monsoons over the years have helped produce foodgrains output to 231 million tonnes in 2008. As we claim ourselves as super power in waiting, the rampant malnutrition and prevalence of anaemic children and women to the extent of 48 per cent of population is a definitive indicator that we have failed to feed the empty stomachs. Under such critical circumstance, it is a criminal act to waste food grains'. It further says, and I quote again : 'Ironically our food storage methods are not only inadequate but also antiquated. In tropical climate, there is acute need to invent methods of food storage that can deal with the high moisture content leading to fungus and damage by rodents. Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) made the Central and state government aware of the problems of food storage way back in 1956. “If the problem persists after warning was issued more than five decades ago, it only means that government is not serious in shoring up the storage facilities to keep up with the expanding production” said Dr Parpia, former director of CFTRI'. unquote.

The Government is more bothered about the commonwealth games than it is about feeding our teeming millions of poor countrymen. The Prime Minister found time to visit the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium to check on it's progress and we are told, was mighty pleased by what he was shown. But he leaves the food business to an empowered GOM as he probably does not have time or the will to take on his most erring minister due to compulsions of coalition politics. Ultimately, it is about politics, rotten, stinking and as hard as a cricket ball.