Abundant Grain Hungry
People
India has now produced the greatest amount of food-grain
ever, says a news report, accompanied by a photograph of loose grain, wheat,
heaped like sand or garbage, probably in a government Food Corporation of India
(FCI) godown.
Torn poly and gunny
bags are piled helter-skelter, a picture of typical and cavalier neglect. The
right hand procures, the left hand destroys. This is the primitive ‘don’t care’
sarkari storage for our expensive, minimum controlled priced ‘procured’ grain.
The higher procurement prices, it is said, have apparently fuelled an uptick in
rural consumption, even as high interest rates and suffering business and
industry has reduced urban buying power and put up food prices.
Meanwhile, the abundant grain itself is unhyegenically
stored, left to rot in the open or in rain swept godowns, rat infested, mostly
unfit for human consumption. That is why it is sold eventually for a pittance
to the makers of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL), that Modi referred to on the campaign trail. But
nothing has been done about rectifying the state of affairs comprehensively and
with thoroughness. Glut and shortage cohabit side by side in the administration
of our agriculture and related issues.
The fruit and vegetables spoilage rate too is a shocking 58
per cent. Little or nothing is done about that either. Value-addition by way of
juicing and dehydration for example, the making of jams, squashes, jellies,
murabbas, their extensive marketing, ubiquitous cold storage, supported by electricity and automated
washing, sorting and packaging for retail
markets, distribution chains to shift the produce quickly, are all
inadequate or non-existent, and in a primitive stage by world standards.
Yet, there must be some co-relationship between this highest
tonnage of grain produced revelation, the rotting grain in storage, and high
food prices. Millions of people go hungry because they are too poor to buy this
food, and the UPA Government sought to cover up this scandalous state of
affairs with a massive free food scheme.
Reuters Columnist Andy Mukerjee wrote that the voters had
not only rejected Congress but all its policies, welfarism in particular,
included. But now that they are gone, the question is what is the Modi Government
going to do about It? This sorry state of affairs in agriculture, highlighted
by bumper crops being grown without any mind paid to how such God’s bounty will
be used to benefit the people! If price rises and inflation was an election
issue that touched more lives than anything else, then tackling rural poverty
becomes the most effective remedy to the most pressing malaise.
The time has come for a massive and spectacular overhauling
of agricultural policy and rural infrastructure to deliver 10 per cent growth
all over the country. This will necessitate the tackling of all the planning,
modernisation and administrative issues this throws up. Agriculture has fallen
to less than 20 per cent of the GDP today from over 60 per cent once, but it
still involves the maximum number of Indian people, and therefore a majority of
voters.
Reforming the agricultural possibilities will result in a
profound transformation, to shower over 600 million people with a measure of
progress, modernity, dignity and social justice. Welfarism is patently not the
answer, but productivity and modernisation is. Some of the work towards laying the
groundwork for rural prosperity is indeed done, but in a lop-sided and
non-beneficial way.
The Modi Government must replicate the success in
agriculture achieved in Gujarat across the nation to ensure its re-election in
state after state, time after time, and in the general elections to come. Many
other issues such as the Indian Railways, national security and defence production
domestically, kick-starting growth in India Inc. and so on, has much importance
too; but tackling the needs of so many people should be given the top most
priority.
This, even as it is very early days, and Narendra Modi goes
to the President to stake his claim to form the first majority Government in 30
years.
(663 words)
May 20th,
2014
Gautam Mukherjee
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