NEW DELHI: A huge political row erupted on Tuesday after Narendra Modi government decided to use the stock of rice with it in production of hand sanitisers, amid demands for distribution of the surplus food grains among the lakhs of migrant workers who are jobless and stranded in cities facing hunger and other hardships due to imposition lockdown in time of coronavirus in the country.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the National Biofuel Coordination Committee (NBCC) chaired by Union minister for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday. The committee also approved the use of the surplus rice stocked at the Food Corporation of India godowns in blending for Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) programme.
This comes close after Union food minister Ram Vilas Paswan told a section of media, while replying to a question as to why government doesn’t release the surplus food grains for free distribution among the migrant workers who are facing hunger amid the lockdown, that government had to keep the stock for emergency situation.
“This is beyond criminality. Instead of feeding starving millions who have lost their ability to survive due to this unplanned and unprepared lockdown, Modi plans to use the huge stock of rice in Central godowns to produce Ethenol for sanitisers!”, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Sitaram Yechhury tweeted.
As per official data, the food grain stock with Union government as on April 1 is much higher than the required norms of maintaining a reserve of about 21 million tonnes.
“India has no shortage for production of Ethyl alcohol for sanitisers. Modi heads this surreal criminal government, throwing millions open to possible starvation deaths,” Yechury, a Rajya Sabha MP, charged, demanding “Release 7.5 crore tonnes of food grains to feed the needy,” Yechury added.
As on date, the Union government has a whopping 58.49 million tonne of foodgrains available at the godowns of the FCI. Of this stock, the rice is 30.97 million tonnes.
“When will the poor of India wake up? You are dying of hunger and they are engaged in cleaning the hands of the rich by making a sanitiser from your portion of rice,” former Congress president and Nehru-Gandhi family scion Rahul Gandhi tweeted in an impassionate message in Hindi on twitter.
Majority of the migrant workers stranded in metro cities and other locations in the country hail from the Hindi-speaking states including Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
