Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, is of the opinion that the rotting of food grains in warehouses is inevitable.

“When food grains are stored in large quantities, there is bound to be some loss due to rotting. From what the Food Corporation of India officials tell me, it is a negligible amount. That doesn’t mean all our stock is rotting,” he said, soon after delivering a lecture on ‘Rural Infrastructure: Issues, Concerns and Prospects’ in Mumbai.

This was his response to the media’s constant emphasis on the issue of rotting grains in our country’s warehouses.

However, many activists were shocked and angry with his statement.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, given the lengths to which Ahluwalia went to defend the Rs28 urban poverty line and Rs22 rural poverty line. In a country where a malnourished child dies every nine minutes, if this is how sensitive the Planning Commission is to the rotting food grains, one can only imagine the apathy at the grassroots,” said Ananda Pawar, Lokshahi Hakk Andolan.

Incidentally, Ahluwalia refused to take questions from the media on the Planning Commission spending Rs35 lakh to renovate two toilet blocks at Yojana Bhavan.