The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : ‘Kerala in for food crisis’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 08, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Kerala

Kerala - Kochi

‘Kerala in for food crisis’

Special Correspondent

85% cut in foodgrain allocation under APL in a year

Restore foodgrain quota of pre-April 2007: dealers
Dealers stage sit-in to press their demands

KOCHI: Ration dealers staged a sit-in in front of Central government offices at taluk and district headquarters on Monday to protest against the Centre’s heavy cut in subsidised ration foodgrain supply to Kerala.

The protest was organised by the All-Kerala Retail Ration Dealers Association. The dealers urged the Central government to restore the State’s rice and wheat quota to last year’s position. Ration shops were closed for half a day in many places for the dealers to take part in the sit-in. There are over 14,000 ration shops in the State, serving some 70 lakh families.

Drastic cut

T. Mohammedali, secretary of the association, told The Hindu that over the past one year, there had bad been an 85 per cent cut in the foodgrain allocation under the APL (above poverty line) to ration shops in the State. The allocation to the APL category until April 2007 had been 1.13 lakh tonnes, which was cut by 92,000 tonnes. This was again reduced by over 4,000 tonnes this month. Thus the allocation of foodgrains a month under the APL category was 17,000 tonnes.

Mr. Mohammedali noted that the APL category constituted roughly 50 lakh of the 70 lakh card-holding families — BPL made up 15 lakh and the Andhyodaya Anna Yojna category (AAY) five laks. Because of the heavy cut, each APL family was now getting only 3.5 kg rice and 1.5 kg wheat a month, which was hardly enough for a five-member family for a couple of days. (BPL families get 17 kg rice and 4 kg wheat a month).

He said that because of the rise in the price of rice in the open market (double the price of ration rice), the APL families, which had in the past deserted the shops, were now returning in droves. But the public distribution system (PDS) was not able to meet their demands.

Mr. Mohammedali said Kerala produced hardly one-fifth of its rice needs. The rest was being either imported from other States or supplied through the PDS. Since other States were now imposing restrictions on rice outflow, he warned that Kerala was in for severe food shortage.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala