Madhya Pradesh: Looted rations, wasted grain, malnourished children

By Raj Kumar Sinha*

Madhya Pradesh has once again made headlines for corruption in the Public Distribution System (PDS). In Jabalpur, government officials and shopkeepers colluded in a ₹25-crore scam, misusing the Food Commissioner’s ID to siphon off rations meant for the poor. In Shivpuri, police seized a truck carrying 412 quintals of PDS rice worth ₹11.2 lakh on its way to Gujarat. These are not isolated incidents but part of a larger pattern of black-marketing.

What is alarming is that those entrusted with ensuring transparent delivery of food grains to the needy are the very people whose hands are stained. The Madhya Pradesh Public Distribution System Control Order, 2015, was meant to make the PDS efficient and transparent, and to treat diversion of food grains as a criminal offence. Yet, these provisions are routinely violated. In July this year, State Food Minister Govind Singh Rajput appealed to Union Food Minister Prahlad Joshi to intervene against rampant black-marketing. He admitted that traders often purchase rice from beneficiaries at low prices and sell it in the open market, distorting the system further.

Equally worrying is the sheer waste of food grains due to negligence in storage and procurement. Thousands of tons rot every year in government warehouses. In Katni alone, nearly 5,000 tons of wheat have gone bad. In Shahdol, over a lakh quintals of paddy were left under the open sky for months, ruined by rains and seepage. In Chhindwara, 1,732 metric tons of wheat from the 2021 procurement was declared unfit, and five years later, it is now worthless. Between 2020 and 2024, 16,000 metric tons of wheat purchased from farmers in Jabalpur have been left to rot, worth nearly ₹35 crore. In Rewa, grains worth ₹3 crore stored in Sirmaur’s Umri cap are spoiled. Such examples abound across the state.

All this while, warehouse owners continue to receive crores of rupees annually from the government for storage charges. In Katni, alone, storage payments exceeded ₹3.8 crore in 2019-20, ₹4.7 crore in 2020-21 and ₹3.6 crore in 2021-22, yet food grains meant for the poor could not be saved. According to official data, nearly 9 lakh quintals of grain have rotted in government warehouses across Madhya Pradesh—enough to feed the entire state for a month. Today, much of it is not even fit for animal fodder.

This tragic irony becomes even starker when seen against India’s Global Hunger Index ranking of 105. In Madhya Pradesh, over 26% of children under five are underweight—the worst record in India. More than 10 lakh children are officially malnourished, 1.36 lakh of them severely. As of May 2025, 45 of the state’s 55 districts were in the “red zone” on the central Nutrition Tracker app, where over 20% of children are severely underweight for their age. In tribal areas alone, over 85,000 children have been admitted to Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres since 2020.

Despite a budget of ₹4,895 crore to fight malnutrition, 38% of children attending Anganwadis remain undernourished. In Indore, the figure is 45%, in Ujjain 46%, and in Gwalior-Chambal nearly 35%. Stunting—when children’s height fails to keep pace with age—remains a glaring indicator of chronic malnutrition. Concerned over this crisis, the Jabalpur High Court recently directed all district collectors to file reports on the real status of malnutrition within four weeks.

Globally too, the picture is grim. According to the UN’s 2024 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, India has the largest number of malnourished people in the world, with 195 million affected. At the same time, the UN’s Food Waste Index Report 2024 estimates that nearly 19% of total food production is wasted annually, amounting to 1.05 billion tons, while 783 million people go hungry. The economic, social and environmental cost of this waste is pegged at $2.6 trillion.

India’s Supreme Court, as far back as 2010, had declared that in a country where people die of hunger, letting even a single grain go to waste is a crime. Yet, in Madhya Pradesh, allegations persist that collusion between officials and private players ensures that grain is deliberately allowed to rot—so that alcohol companies can buy it cheap to brew beer and other liquors.

This is not just mismanagement—it is a moral and humanitarian failure. It violates the right to food, deepens malnutrition, squanders public resources, damages the environment and fuels inequality. With India’s population projected to touch two billion in the next 35 years, the question is urgent: if we cannot protect and distribute the food we already have, how will we feed our future generations?

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*Bargi Dam Displaced and Affected Association

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