Drought possible, famine not

With deficient rain, the spectre of drought looms large over the country, but there is no famine fear. In fact, the agriculture ministry is struggling to store the record amount of grain it has procured this year.

Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said enough grain had been procured to last 13 years, creating a problem of plenty.  The Food Corporation of India (FCI) had a storage capacity of 271.8 lakh metric tonnes as of June 2009.

Of this, 236.14 lakh metric tonnes has been utilised in over 1,451 warehouses and procurement for the kharif season is yet to be done. Utilisation in all states is between 51% and 96%, leaving little room for more. “The space is clearly inadequate for the level of procurement we have done,” a ministry official said.

“The situation has come to such a pass that plinths will be built on empty spaces outside FCI warehouses to increase storage capacity,” he said, adding, “We have also authorised our general managers to avail of any and every space available from the central and state warehousing corporations and private parties.”

The aim is to create around 3.41 lakh metric tonnes of storage capacity in the next five years. “In 2002, a similar problem had occurred with a series of good monsoons and bumper crops. Then, the NDA government had lifted curbs on commodity trade, speculation and private buying. The situation this time is not the same, of course, but nobody is going to starve even if there is a drought,” the ministry official said.