Cuttack: Absolute, ravaging hunger has driven slum dwellers in Odisha to dig up wasted food grain by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and eat it for their survival. The 1,206 bags of PDS rice belonging to the FCI were supposed to feed empty stomachs. Instead, they lay rotting in Cuttack's railway goods shed for the last nine months, stuck in a red-tape tussle between the railways and the FCI over storage issues.
Finally on Wednesday, the Railways buried the 1,206 bags of rice near Cuttack.
Surprisingly, a significant amount of the rice was apparently in good condition and though the poor locals pleaded the authorities, they were not allowed to take away the rice.
"We saw that the rice was in good condition. So we wanted to take it home. I don't understand why they dumped this rice here. They could have distributed it to us. When they were dumping it, we asked them to give it to us but they refused," said a local resident....
more
06:28 AM, Aug 12, 2012
Kota: Even as the rest of the north of the country bears with an unforgiving summer season and a drought-like situation in many of its parts, in Rajasthan, grain rot continues and it is not a meager amount. Nearly Rs 2 crore worth of wheat still remains in the open. CNN-IBN visited a farmer family in Kota which had just enough grain to last it four weeks. The irony is...
08:45 AM, Jul 05, 2012
