After centuries of battling hunger and starvation, Indian rodents can at last breathe a sign of relief. Union Minister for Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution today proudly announced that Indian rats have become hunger-free. "It is with great pleasure that I announce to the nation that our country has finally eradicated hunger and starvation for its billions of rodent population.
At a special function held at Chandigarh, capital of Punjab & Haryana, Sharad Pawar congratulated Indian farmers for producing surplus wheat stock year after year to help our rodents achieve freedom from hunger. "It has been a long and arduous struggle for us to make India hunger-free for our large rodent population. But thanks to the hard work and toil of our farmers, we can finally declare India hunger-free for rats."
Congratulating the Punjab Government for letting millions of tonnes of wheat rot in open, Pawar said that the government of Punjab has created a model form of food distribution which should be lauded by one and all for its simplicity in distributing food grains to hungry rodents. "Its a unique public distribution system which combines socialism with charity and helps feed millions of hungry rats. But of course, none of this would have been possible without the efforts of our farmers who have time and again produced surplus stocks to help feed our poor rats."
In last three years, the stockpiles of wheat in Punjab has grown to monumental proportions. According to media reports, 7.2 million metric tonnes of wheat grain is stored in graneries while 6.5 million metric tonnes of wheat lies in the open. The value of the food grain that is rotting is estimated to be about Rs. 8000-10000 crores.
Chief Minister of Punjab, Parkash Singh Badal lamented that many millions of tons still continue to rot unconsumed because of lack of storage facilities and adequate communication system. He said that since they have exhausted all their warehouses and storages, the state has no option but to let the wheat stacks lie in open on roads. He called for Central government to make more efforts to communicate to rats all over the country about the existence of free, surplus wheat stocks in the graneries of Punjab to ensure that the food grains do not rot without being consumed. "Yes, we are very proud that our rats are finally hunger-free, but we cannot just sit on our laurels and need to do a lot more. It is also necessary that we achieve equality in food distribution. It's a painful sight to see the inequalities that exist between the rats of Punjab, Haryana and our neighbouring states and rats of states from faraway states like Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra or Andhra Pradesh. While our Punjabi rats look healthy, plump and overfed, many millions of rats from poorer states are still suffering from malnutrition and diseases. The government of India needs to generate better delivery mechanisms to ensure that our excess wheat reaches the poor, undernourished rats of other states."
Pawar admitted that due to inadequate communication, millions of rats in eastern, western and southern states of India are unaware of the surplus stacks of wheat lying in open and continue to be underfed, but said that the problem was more complex than just lacunae in communication. "Malnourished rats are too weak to travel long distances to avail the surplus production lying in graneries of Punjab. We need to make more efforts to ensure that the surplus wheat is lifted from Punjab graneries to those areas where the problem of rodent malnourishment is acute." He called upon state governments to make arrangements to transport the surplus wheat stacks from Punjab to their home states at a faster pace to ensure that rats in their states enjoy the benefits of surplus wheat production. "The untiring efforts of our wheat farmers shouldn't go to waste due to bureaucratic delays." said the minister.
Meanwhile at New Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that this truly historic achievement shows that hunger can be eradicated completely. "Today we have made Indian rodents hunger free. I'm sure that if we continue to work tirelessly and with utmost dedication in the same direction, in a few centuries, our human population will be hunger-free too."
