Amid Union Government’s announcements regarding free distribution of food grains among crores of poor sections across the country, about 500 tonnes of food grains, belonging to the Food Corporation of India (FCI), have been damaged in the dump-yard of the New Giridih Railway station.

Sources from the Indian Railways revealed that these food grains were brought from somewhere in South India.

“Soon after the food grains were dumped in the Railway dump-yard on September 27, these were supposed to be taken over by the FCI authorities. But they ignored the sensitivity of the food grains lying in an open ground. As a result, major quantities of the rice packets got drenched and finally rotted”, an official from the New Giridih Railway station said on condition of anonymity. The site of occurrence comes under the joint jurisdiction of Indian railways as well as the Bengabad circle office of Giridih district.

When asked, the FCI warehouse in-charge, Sanjay Sharma said that he was not aware about the issue. “If the food grains rotted in the railway dump yard, this is not our responsibility. Instead, this is the joint responsibility of the sensor as well as the railway authorities”, Sharma said, adding that dumping food grains in the open yard, especially during the rainy season, is nothing but a kind of irresponsible work.

On the other hand, Santosh Singh, the Superintendent of New Giridih Railway Station said he had no information, if there was any such incident. “As soon as we noticed that the food grains were kept in the dump yard, we followed the procedure and transported all to a safe destination”, Singh said.

On June 1, the FCI authorities had buried more than a thousand rice bags that were spoiled just because of ignorance and negligence by the authorities concerned. These rice sacks were to be transported from Chhattisgarh to the FCI godown at Giridih.