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Sharad Pawar’s remark on foodgrains refuted

KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee refuted at a meeting of leaders of the ruling Left Front here on Wednesday a reported remark by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in New Delhi a day ago that the low off-take in foodgrains in the public distribution system in the State was responsible for reductions in the quota of allotments of foodgrains.

Chairman of the Left Front Committee, Biman Bose, said after the meeting that on the contrary the quota of foodgrains being allotted to the State has continuously been falling drastically. “For time immemorial the State has been asking the Centre to increase the allotment,” he added.

The Chief Minister has written to the Centre in this regard. “We have never asked for much, what we have been asking for is reasonable,” Mr. Bose said.

On Tuesday, while speaking to The Hindu, the State’s Food and Supply Minister, Paresh Adhikari, had denied another of Mr. Pawar’s remarks, pertaining to the alleged diversion of foodgrains to Bangladesh.

The Left Front meeting noted with concern the spate of attacks on ration-dealers in certain parts of the State and called for ways to resist “a conspiracy to destabilise the public distribution system.”

There were reports of fresh incidents of violence and attacks on ration shops in South 24 Parganas district and in the Harischandrapur area in Malda district where a few policemen were injured while trying to quell the disturbances.

Left Front leaders agreed that authorities in the districts where such incidents were occurring could convene all-party meetings to prevent the recurrence of such incidents and work on improving the situation, Mr. Bose said.

“The Left Front is asking the State Government to improve the overall public distribution system and ensure an increase in the allotment of food-grains supplies” he added.

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