The NAC proposals for the food security bill are narrow and lack in vision. What is needed is a comprehensive bill with universalisation of PDS and a focus on child malnutrition.   There was much excitement when food security became one of the issues in the manifestos of most major political parties in the run up to the 2009 General Elections. With burgeoning food stocks, double-digit food inflation, stagnant malnutrition rates, declining...

Fifty-five thousand metric tonnes of food grains rotted in Punjab alone and thousands of tonnes more across the nation. The pictures of rotting grains might have shocked us, but not Adesh Pratap Singh, the Food Minister of Punjab and certainly not Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The documents accessed by CNN-IBN through an RTI revealed that this rot was expected. A copy of a letter by Punjab's...

While the National Advisory Council (NAC), Planning Commission and the Prime Minister Office are grappling over the proposed National Food Security Bill, the government has been steadily increasing allocation under the Targetted Public Distribution System (TPDS) during last many years. According to Siraj Hussain, chairman and managing director, Food Corporation of India (FCI), with the rise in procurement of wheat and rice by the corporation during last few years, more and...

The mountainous state-owned food stocks lying in the open and rotting in the rain are in stark conflict with a failing public distribution system , hunger, malnutrition and high food prices. The poor management of food stocks provoked the Supreme Court to transgress into executive domain when, on August 12, the court made certain directions like limiting procurement to covered warehousing capacity and distributing the rotting foodgrains free of cost...

Over 611,424 tonnes of paddy have been purchased by government agencies and private rice millers in Punjab, an official said here Tuesday. Government agencies have bought over 97 percent of the stocks while private rice millers have purchased nearly three percent in the first five days of the process. Six agencies -- the Food Corporation of India (FCI) of the central government and five of the Punjab government -- are engaged in...