Barabanki:
The Supreme Court has rapped the government on rotting food grain, saying not a morsel should be wasted. But it will take some time before the message goes down to the ground, as food grain still rots as the poor go hungry.
In Barabanki, one of the poor districts of Uttar Pradesh, foodgrain is rotting in a warehouse. Most bags of wheat here got soaked in the rain, and if not dried within the next few days will be unfit for consumption.
"The food grain got wasted during transportation," says Ram Narayan, Godown Supervisor.
It is not surprising that the officials are quick to pass the blame to someone else, but the real fallout of the sheer negligence can be seen in villages where families are starving, but there isn't enough wheat.
A little distance away from that godown, in Kinhauli village, Mahadeer is struggling to keep his family of five away from hunger. He holds a Below Poverty Line ration card, but says wheat and rice are not always available in the ration shop.
"When there is no food, we have to borrow money and buy from the open market," says Mahadeer.
"When there is less food, we feed the kids and go hungry," said Ramawati from the same village.
It's the same story in most houses in this village.
"Often when we go to the ration shop there is no foodgrain available. On those days, all three of us have to go hungry," says Sarwaan.
There are many families like this here, who don't get their share of grains from the government shop as it lies rotting in godowns, and perhaps it explains why more than half the children in UP are malnourished.