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Towards Hunger Free India - Speeches
On behalf of the Planning Commission it is indeed my privilege to thank the Hon’ble Prime Minister for finding time this afternoon to be with us for this inaugural session and for inspiring us with his thought-provoking address as to how to fight hunger, in India. Sir, you have very rightly observed that with 50 million Tonnes of foodgrain in our godowns there should not be any hunger in the country. However, it is painful to note that almost half of our women and 60% of children are anaemic and under-nourished. This is despite the fact that there are well funded nutrition schemes for all age groups, such as ICDS for children, MDM for school-goers, FFW for adults & old-age pension/ Annapurna for the old people. If hunger persists, it is clearly a problem of bad delivery & governance.
Besides improving governance, we also need to focus on augmenting agricultural production in poorer and backward areas, such as eastern and central India, so that the poor either produce themselves, or have enough purchasing power to buy subsidized foodgrain under the TPDS. However, between 1990-91 & 2000-2001 foodgrain production has increased only from 176 to 196 million tonnes, showing an increase of 12% in ten years. Despite such a poor record on the front of foodgrain production, how come we have 50 million tonnes in our godowns, is in itself a big puzzle. Has the purchasing power of the people gone down, or have they shifted to vegetables and fruits, or is it because of liberalized imports in the previous years?
These are some of the issues that we ought to be discussing in this Workshop tomorrow and come to some definite policy recommendations for the 10th Plan.
Once again, Sir, I would like to express our gratitude to Hon’ble Prime Minister and Hon’ble Deputy Chairman for sparing their valuable time for the Conference. I would also like to thank Prof. Swaminathan, Vice President, WFP, Regional Manager Mr. Medrano and all the participants who have graced this occasion.
Thank you.
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