Govt hits back at Oppositions' taunt on using excess rice for sanitiser manufacturing

The move by Centre to use excess rice in the manufacture of ethanol to keep up with the demand of sanitisers in the country, as expected, paved way for controversy as millions complain of starvation during the phase two of nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of novel coronavirus across India.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a Hindi tweet targetted the government and claimed while the poor are dying of hunger, the government is attempting to cleanse the hands of rich with sanitisers using that portion of rice, the have nots should have consumed.

"Hygiene should not be the sole preserve of those who can afford it," government sources claimed as reported by NDTV.

The Centre also assured that the process would bring down the prices of sanitisers, which is the need of the hour in India's fight against COVID-19.

"Hand sanitisers are also the need of the hour. Ramping up production of ethanol will bring their cost down and make them available to the poor as well," NDTV quoting sources wrote.

In reaction to the taunt by the Oppositions, the government sources said that: "Converting extra rice to ethanol is a legal process and there was three times more rice in Food Corporation of India godowns than needed."

A meeting of National Biofuel Coordination Committee (NBCC) was held on Monday under the Chairmanship of Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan, wherein it was approved that the surplus rice available with Food Corporation of India (FCI) may be converted to ethanol for utilization in making alcohol-based hand-sanitizers and in blending for Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) programme.

"National Policy on Biofuels, 2018 under Para 5.3 inter-alia envisages that during an agriculture crop year when there is projected over supply of food grains as anticipated by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, the policy will allow conversion of these surplus quantities of food grains to ethanol," a government statement read.

However, over the last weeks, there has been a huge controversy over reports that many people from the poor section of the society are not getting enough ration to meet their hunger amid the nationwide lockdown.

The report comes even as the godowns of the Food Corporation of India have been full.

At the onset of the lockdown, the government had promised that no one will remain hungry during this period and claimed to feed over 800 million poor people across the country.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that 5 kg of wheat or rice will be given to each person free of cost, with a kilogram of pulses for every low-income family, through the public distribution system (PDS).

Twitter PIB video grab

"No one will go hungry," the minister had promised at the time.

However, ration through PDS is available only to the ones having proper cards. However, several migrants are right now not carrying the ration cards where they are stuck.

Besides, there are others who do not even own a ration card. According to reports, their number is around 5 million, owing to which experts have suggested that food under PDS be distributed to anyone who shows up.

The novel coronavirus has already claimed the lives of 603 and infected 18,985 so far.