Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said that the food in government godowns should be distributed among poor people.
While addressing a press conference via video conference, Gandhi said, "The food we have in government godowns should be distributed among poor people. It should have been done 10 days ago. 10 kg wheat or rice, 1 kg pulses and 1 kg sugar should be given to people every week."
Rahul Gandhi also said, "Provide food, put money in the bank accounts of the poorer sections of the society pre-emptively. Create a package for the aid of SMEs. Ensure protection for small businesses. There is food in godowns -- but it's not reached people yet."
Addressing a press conference via video conference, Gandhi also said the entire country has to fight the crisis "unitedly" and there is need to grant adequate resources to the states to help them deal with it in a "nuanced" manner.
Instead of conducting tests on the basis of suspected cases, India must adopt a strategy and bring out an architecture under which testing should be expanded exponentially and find out where the country stands, the Congress leader said.
On Wednesday, Rahul Gandhi had appealed the government to issue emergency ration cards to feed the poor who are suffering from lack of provisions including migrants and poor who are not getting rations through PDS. Gandhi said that it is "inhuman" that grains are rotting and people remain with empty stomachs.
Gandhi tweeted "We appeal to the government that in this difficult times issue emergency ration cards, this should be for those people who are suffering due to lockdown and don't have food grains, lakhs of citizens are not able to take ration from PDS , the foodgrains is rotting in go down and people, are hungry, inhuman."
As per estimates India has more than the one year's reserve of food grains .As per reports the government currently has 58.49 milion metric tones of good grain with rice is about 30.97 and wheat 27.53 million metric ton. The stock is much higher than the required limit as on April 1 said reports.
