Sunday, April 20, 2008

Deficit in food supply

After a long time, India is facing scarcity of Wheat and Rice. Despite having good mansoons since last four years, this situation has arised. What are the reasons.
The reasons are political. For that one should know how the public distribution system works in India.
The agiculture is a state subject. Whatever surplus production of cereals take place in State, it becomes a responsibility of the state to make this surplus available to the public distribution system of our Country. But the states which do not have Congress or its ally in power did not contribute to the PDS. Same is the case of states ruled by the left parties. Now these states are the traditional suppliers of wheat and rice to the country. It is unfortunate that the politics has creeeped in such vital national issue. It's a really shameful situation. Therefore Government of India has to procure a third grade wheat from Australia and it gave a political weapon for opposition and left parties.
Now when union PDS minister Sharad Pawar declared in parliament the contributions made by the states ruled by opposition and left parties to the PDS, the real issue came to forefront.
With the changing food consumption patterns the demand of wheat and rice is increasing all over the India, the politics between the BJP led NDA, Left parties and Congress has aggravated the situation. India is really in the hands of third grade politicians. Unfortunately the media is also not interested in bringing such issues to the forefront. The people of India are really not well informed about the government machinery and the way it functions. The media is doing too little to change this.