Patna: Rats have been eating away poor men’s food in Bihar, leaving the poverty-stricken class virtually starving.
According to a latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India which was tabled in the state assembly on Monday, rodents have eaten around 3,000 quintals of food-grains stored in government’s warehouses in 2010-11.
These food-grains meant for the people below poverty line (BPL) families were stored in various warehouses of state food corporations located in Darbhanga, Begusarai, Muzaffarpur and Nawada districts but their poor packaging allowed the rats to feast on them. The eaten or destroyed grains which included rice and wheat were to be distributed among 12,000 BPL families. The state has a total of around 14 million BPL families.
Describing it as a very serious crime, the CAG has recommended for realising the cost of the destroyed foodgrains from the SFC employees. The report further said that foodgrains worth over Rs2 billion were destroyed or rotten as the SFC authorities did not lift food from the godowns and distribute the same among the poor.
The prevailing rat menace in Bihar has been proving costlier for the state economy but the authorities are yet to initiate any steps to contain the problem.
In 2008, the authorities had come out with a unique idea to promote rat meat and put it in the menu of prominent city’s hotels, restaurants and road-side eateries. The logic given by the authorities was that rat meat will not only contain rodent population but will also save foodgrains. Moreover, they explained, rat meat is also nutritious.
According to the authorities, around half of state’s foodgrain stocks are eaten up by rodents every year and hence the rat meat will prove to be boon for the state.
“Rat meat has huge potential to be developed into a popular dish which, if extensively commercialised will tackle almost 50 per cent of the food crisis in the country,” was how explained the then social welfare department secretary Vijay Prakash who had mooted the idea.
He even had planned for holding food festivals, set up stalls at various locations to sell rat meat and train hotels in ways of making tasty rat meat dishes stating that “many of the reputed hotels in foreign countries have rat meat as an important part of the menu. We will interact with these hotels to teach us how to adapt our cuisine to this meat. We intend to make it a household item very soon here.”
However, his idea was strongly opposed by the poor who even held rallies in Patna to register their formal protest. They alleged that the government was hatching a deep-rooted conspiracy to destroy their career. Eventually, the government had to shelve the plan.
