Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, led by L.K. Advani and Nitin Gadkari, marched to the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Thursday and handed over to President Pratibha Patil a six-page memorandum on the rising prices of food articles and rotting grain in government godowns.
Leaders of the Opposition in the two Houses of Parliament, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, were also part of the BJP delegation, which said it presented to the President “crores of signatures” collected from people across the country, protesting against the “back-breaking” inflation.
They demanded food security for all citizens, creation of an adequate buffer stock of food grains, stopping of forward trading in food articles in the Commodities Exchange and steps to ensure that the farmer got adequate price for what he produced while the consumer got it at reasonable rates.
The “skewed” distribution system helped only the middlemen, the party said. While a farmer got Rs. 2 to Rs. 4 a kg for potatoes, the consumer in cities paid Rs. 10 to Rs. 18. It was the same case with other vegetables and fruits. The consumer paid five to ten times the price the farmer got.
The party pointed out that forward trading in food articles was pushing up the prices artificially. Speculative activity, involving thousands of crores, in food grain and other food items in the Commodities Exchange was pushing up the prices.
The memorandum said the government remained apathetic to this critical issue though the Opposition parties, especially the BJP, had time and again drawn its attention to the urgent problem that was affecting people, especially the poorest. Despite repeated assurances from the government that it was monitoring prices and this was high on its list of priorities, it had done little to impact the continuously rising prices.
Ironically, the poor were dying of hunger, and food was out of their reach, while tonnes of wheat was rotting in open godowns. Of the 183 lakh tonnes of wheat in the central pool, nearly 80 lakh tonnes had rotten.
The memorandum gave a region-wise breakup of wheat lying in open godowns, even as the monsoon arrived. Against a buffer stock requirement of 200 lakh tonnes, the government was holding 453 lakh tonnes. This huge stock, without adequate storage facility, would rot in no time. And despite the huge stock, the prices were rising. This was entirely due to mismanagement, the party alleged.