Ramsar (Rajasthan), August 29: The country has sufficient food grain stocks to feed the Public Distribution System that will ensure no poor person goes hungry, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said today.
Admitting the impact of poor monsoon on prices, he told reporters here that “no one has control over drought. It’s a severe drought. If you look at numbers, it’s in many parts (and naturally) it affects prices.”
However, there was “sufficient food grain stocks and we can reinforce our Public Distribution System to such a level that no BPL (Below Poverty Line) family should be going hungry,” he said.
The government had earlier said that there was 50 million tonnes of buffer food grain stocks. This, according to experts, was enough to feed the entire country for three whole months in the event of any contingency.
–PTI