As Grains Rot, Millions Die Of Malnutrition in India

Hakkam Singh, who works as a watchman at the open field said to Reuters “The wheat has been lying there for the past five years. It smells very bad.” “Nobody steals it, but people use it to feed fish and poultry farms.”

At another dump, on the outskirts of Amritsar, locals told Reuters that officials sometimes immerse into the sacks of rotting grain to mix it with fresh wheat for distribution to the poor who hold ration cards.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that malnutrition was “a national shame”. The cause of this widespread malnutrition cannot be tied automatically to a lack of staples like rice and wheat.

In reality, many families living on less than $2 a day are fuelled by subsidised carbohydrate-rich food like wheat chapatis. These lack the much-required protein and other nutrients that come in more expensive food. Poor hygiene and contaminated water are also other causes as they cause illnesses like diarrhoea, which prevents nutrient absorption.

In 2010 the Supreme Court had advised the government to distribute grain free of cost to the hungry rather than let it go to waste in warehouses and open fields, but that hasn’t happened yet.

This is because state governments are unwilling to buy extra grain for distribution under the food welfare programme and, even if they were, only people with under-the-poverty-line ration cards would be entitled to buy it in subsidised shops.