Sir,
This refers to the writeup ‘Country must observe ‘Roti Day’ every year’ (DE, Feb15, 2019). There is no doubt that good nutritious food is one of the basic necessities of every human being.But while huge amount of food is wasted during wedding and other functions every year, a large number of people have to sleep on an empty stomach.In their desperate attempt to ensure two square meals a day, many children are seen picking rags on the roadside, garbage heaps, lanes/bylanes in the morning in the chilly weather conditions.
Most of them are semi clad and are forced to do labour for food at the age when they should have been to school studying with their school mates and playing with them.Similarly, many children and women look for the food in the heaps of garbage, which is a blot on the modern civilized society.The fact that around 67 million tonnes of food worth 92000 crores of rupees is wasted in India every year should make all of us feel astonished and do something to ensure that little food is wasted so that it can be provided to those who are forced to go without food.
There should be a mechanism by which surplus cooked and uncooked hygienic food is stored in community refrigerators and then served to those who need it.Collection of food from the garbage need to be banned and people who are vulnerable to starvation due to illness, oldage or any other reason need to be identfiied and provided food in community langars.The provisions of Food Security Act need to be fully implemented in letter and spirit and those found violating it must be penalised. NGOs too must come forward and try their best to supplement the Government’s efforts in saving food from being wasted and thus,ending starvation from this world.
Ashok Sharma,
Housing Colony,
Udhampur.
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