It is seen that
for the year 2017-2018 the total food grains production and pulses were around
280 million tons or so. Experts feel that this has resulted in glut with
glaring gap of the products not finding proper market outlet at fair price for
the farmers. Experts in India feel that this is due to overproduction as some
crops were cultivated more than the available demand and hence the farmers had
to suffer heavy losses.
This may look to
be so as the necessary infrastructure takes time in developing and the nature
of intake of nutritious food in India is not up to the standard required of
such a large country. Yet there is a possibility of marketing products through
different channels as I had already written earlier. One of the best available
marketing tools the government has is the public distribution system or PDS
which has extensive network all over the country. The government can make use
of it quite easily and this needn’t be restricted to food grains only. Even
pulses and other food commodities can also be marketed through this system with
or without subsidy.
To cut short the
essay the government can take note of the latest official circular of the WHO
(World Health Organization) which had placed India among the bottom segments of
countries having population with very low nutritional value in their diet. This
is indeed shocking.
Naturally, on the
part of the government this is also an advantage. The government through its
PDS channel may resort to compulsory marketing of several of the farm products.
This is especially so for population who have cards that are marked as below
poverty. It is generally seen in North or South India that ration card holders
go to their respective ration shops and order only sugar and perhaps wheat or
rice. They then make the rest of their
purchase from kirana stores and large shops.
The government may
have to just look into the quality standards and once this is taken care of
lentils, food grains, pulses and other food products purchased from farmers
under the MSP could be compulsorily purchased under the ration card scheme.
Otherwise, the card holder has to forgo the card and lose government subsidy. This
compulsory subsidized ration will by itself give a marketing outlet for
products bought under MSP. Supplying of food products under the PDS scheme should
be according to each person in a family and not just for family. This means for
example each person in a family would need to purchase say 5 kg of each item
compulsorily. Otherwise, the person has the option to purchase the same from the
supermarket or other stores, but lose his subsidy and the ration card. The
required quantities of each item could be arrived at after meeting with experts
in the respective areas.
Here itself millions
of tons of food grains can be sold off with ease all over the country. The
government can easily cite the reason that the people are not having proper nutrition.
Another thing one can easily see here is that the production level of the
country with respect to food grains is not sufficient for the population. This
is because if each Indian citizen starts to take 3 meals a day then there will
be shortage of most food products. Besides, one shouldn’t forget the restaurants,
hotels, food courts, and instant-foods, way side inns, eateries on wheels on
the National Highways and occasional coffees and teas with bites that many
Indians would like to consume in the not too distant future. If this is so then
India would need to produce not less than 450 million tons of food. Millions of
Indian who can afford already has several snack intervals and a major tea time
in the afternoons. As for health and obesity and BP there are other supply
chains like nutritionists, psychologists, yoga experts and medical experts and
so on who will study each individual and advice for the same. After all we are
running an economy and not a spiritual center.
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