India's Food Grains Rot While 500 Million Poor Stay Hungry

Bangalore: The surplus production of wheat has left India in a fix this year. With yet another bumper harvest, India seems unable to utilise or export enough wheat and rice from the record stockpile of the country. It means that crops pose the threat of rotting in the fields rather than being sold on world markets to cash in on higher prices, as reported by Naveen Thukral and Mayank Bhardwaj for Reuters.

The sixth consecutive wheat crop will be harvested in March in India and is expected to exceed demand. In June when threshing is over this stock and the government's wheat and rice stocks combined are set to hit 100 million tonnes. The volume is estimated to be about a fifth higher than the volume in storage last year.

The collected grain stock is worth about $30 billion and India will soon have enough wheat piled up to feed its poor for a year. However with outspread corruption and incompetent food distribution and storage system, much of the stock will end up rotting than the 500 million poor people getting a meal or two. India is not even able to incur income from exports to reduce a current recorded account deficit.

The government has been hard pressed by food ministry to increase exports, however the inefficient transport system in India will not be able to get the large portions of grains to the ports even with the global price rising a fifth last year.

Also Read: 25 Pct Population Hungry in India Even With Excess Grain Stock