The Hindu : PDS ANOMALIES: Vajpayee calls all-party meet

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 12, 2003

National

National

PDS ANOMALIES: Vajpayee calls all-party meet

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 11. Unhappy with the starvation deaths and low offtake of foodgrain under the Centrally-sponsored schemes despite surplus foodstock in the country, the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, has called an all-party meeting to seek better cooperation between the Centre and the States and chalk out ways to streamline the Public Distribution System to ensure that the food reaches the targeted people.

The meeting will be held anytime after Parliament re-assembles on April 21. This is likely to be followed by a meeting of the Chief Ministers and Food Ministers to discuss the issue as the distribution and identification of the below poverty line families is their responsibilities.

Official sources said the meeting had been called at the behest of the Union Food Minister, Sharad Yadav, who had written to the Prime Minister drawing his attention to the paradox of starvation deaths and low offtake of foodgrain by the State Governments despite surplus stocks. The matter was subsequently raised in Parliament last month by the Opposition, which accused the Centre of not supplying enough foodgrains to the non-NDA-ruled States in the wake of the severe drought last year.

The Prime Minister had announced holding of an all-party meeting in the House then.

In his letter, Mr. Yadav said the Food Corporation of India, which bought the foodgrain from the States had its godowns full but the States had failed to lift the stocks. The offtake had been between 30-40 per cent even under the free schemes and there had been no demand for more foodgrains from any State even though the Centre was willing to give more.

The aim behind the all-party meeting is to stop the ``blame game'' going on between the Centre and the States and to work out a permanent solution.

There have been complaints that the basic problem lay with the bad distribution system. The Fair Price Shops are not stocked, the quality of grain available through the PDS is not good and discrepancies in the identification of the below poverty line families are some of the issues that will be taken up at the meeting. The incidents of poor families of Orissa mortgaging their BPL cards that deprived them of the subsidised and free foodgrain will also be discussed.

Though the Government has increased the quantity of rice from 10 kg to 35 kg a family a month, the families did not have the resources to buy in bulk. The proposal of allowing purchases in instalments from the FPS will also be discussed.

The offtake of foodgrain from the Central pool has been abysmally low. It fell to a mere 118 lakh tonnes in 2000-01 from 168 tonnes in 1998-99 and 184 lakh tonnes in 1999-2000. It was 136 lakh tonnes in 2001-02 but is likely to go up to 180 lakh tonnes in 2002-03.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National