Food wastage in India

 In thousands of person die of hunger and this is what is happening in India. Our food minister is making statement in Parliament that food waste figures  were exaggerated, on the other side Supreme Court commissioners on food have reported to the apex court that as much as 50,000 metric tonnes of grains have already gone bad.
The court commissioners dubbed negligence by officials as `genocidal' and recommended responsibility and accountability be fixed at the highest level in Central and state governments.

The commissioners have warned that this is just a third of the 1.37 lakh MT of wheat lying in the open since 2008-09 in Punjab, and the entire lot could have become unfit for consumption as Food Corporation of India (FCI) norms allow grains to be exposed to nature for only a year.
In Haryana, too, 31,574 MT of grains have been lying in the open since 2008-09.
Another 27.38 lakh MT of grain are lying in Punjab. While 18.90 MT of grains are wrapped in polythene, and gathering dust for the past two years.
The commissioners report that "a significant quantity of these foodgrains are likely to go waste if urgent measures are not taken by the Government of India to release these stocks to poor immediately."
The Supreme Court commissioners' statement comes in stark contrast to that of Pawar, who had earlier said in Parliament only 11,700 MT of grains worth Rs 6.86 crore had become unfit for consumption and reports of rotting grains were blown out of proportion.
When contacted principle adviser to court commissioners, Biraj Patnaik, refused to comment, stating the issue is sub-judice. A counter affidavit filed by the government to this report quietly skirts the issue of rotting grains completely.
Instead it talks of long-term arrangements to increase space for storage.
The apex court, in its earlier hearing, had asked why grains should not be distributed to the poor instead of being allowed to rot in the open.
The government claimed it cannot increase allocation of grains to the state under the PDS as it is not able take ad-hoc decisions while the new criteria is being developed by the government.
Pointing to continuing deliberations under the National Advisory Council (NAC), the government has admitted it currently makes allocation of foodgrains to states on the basis of decade-old population figures. But it has refused to increase allocation, saying it would wait for the National Food Security Bill to come through and NAC to formally make its recommendations to the government.
The court commissioners note that: "Ironically, the allotment of food grains (rice and wheat) made by the Union government to the state governments as well as through open market sales is lower in the current financial year than in the last financial year."