Wary that widespread pilferage of grains in the Public Distribution System (PDS) might play spoilsports to its election ‘game changer’ Food Security law ahead of the 2014 lok Sabha polls, the UPA Government has woken up to bring the construction of food storage godowns in rural areas under Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).
While the States will have to provide land for construction for the godowns, the Rural Development Ministry will fund the construction cost under the rural job guarantee scheme. It has allocated Rs 450 crore for creating 15 lakh tones of storage capacity across the country by March-end.
The decision has been taken in view of slow progress in the construction of intermediary godowns by state governments at a time when the UPA Government is in a hurry to roll out the ambitious food law in all states keeping an eye on the general elections next year.
Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh told reporters on Thursday that, “After toilets and anganwadi kendras, we have decided to construct intermediary godowns for storage of PDS foodgrains under the MNREGA. In this regard, the Schedule 1 of the MNREGA will be amended soon.”
He also maintained that the construction of permanent structures like godowns and toilets has been taken under MNREGA as the rural job scheme has been blamed for doing only “kuccha (temporary) work and not pucca (permanent) work, he said.
States like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharasthra and Gujarat are expected to benefit maximum, he added. However, sources in the RD Ministry said that though such a proposal was given in-principal approval last year itself, it gained momentum recently as the UPA Government gears up to roll out its Chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s pet scheme for food security.
The law was passed in Parliament recently after much debate and lot of hard-selling by the ruling Government. There has been lot of issues about the storage of grains, for example in states like Punjab, where due to lack of facilities, tonnes of grains have rotted in the past.
Thomas who was also at the joint conference too pointed out that currently, foodgrain is distributed directly from FCI depots to ration shops, resulting in 25-30 per cent leakage and pilferage. “Construction of storage facility and strengthening PDS are two key factors for successful implementation of the food law.”
However, he failed to explain why the Government was late in linking construction of food storage godowns with the NREGA. Ramesh said that there are 6,612 blocks in the country and an average storage capacity of 44,000 tonne needs to be created for efficient PDS.
Currently, the Government has storage capacity of 76.79 million tonne foodgrain. lot of it is destroyed as has been revealed by the FCI in a RTI query that said over 17,500 tonnes of foodgrain lying in its godowns got destroyed in the last three years.