From 50 Years Ago: Digesting P l 480.

Shri S K Patil has given us food and given us a good deal more food for thought. The praise-worthy features of the Indo-US food agreement, to which Shri Patil was mainly instrumental, has received a well deserved Press. The generous proportion ofthe deal, the liberal terms and timeliness of the gesture have also been duly noted. Yet the Food Ministry is obviously worried. For it is a stupendous task handling the 17 mil-lion tons of grains, in the stipulated period. Within months, if not weeks, the Ministry will have to get ready a scheme – a fool proof scheme – to receive a ship load of wheat a day, find the port facility for it, transport it, store it and reach it to the people in the different regions when they want it and at a price they can pay for it. …The present scheme of the Ministry is to provide storage for the buffer stock of 4 million tons. The balance of 13 million tons will be despatched direct to the consuming centres. …When he returns from America, the Food Minister will have his hands full with these details. But he will have to do many other things, too. …What will happen if in the middle of American imports, internal crop figures show a steep increase? How willthe price line be held then from tumbling to catastrophe? Is there provision for deferring the American imports in such a situation?