October 1: The government's emergency warehouse has only half the food stock the prescrimed amount.

There is a provision that the government should mandatorily keep 33,000 metric tons of food in stock for emergency situations like epidemics, earthquakes and floods. However, currently, the government-owned Food Management and Trading Company Limited has only about 16,000 metric tons of food in stock.

Officials say that the company has 12,300 metric tons of rice, 435 metric tons of paddy, 3,400 metric tons of wheat and 4 metric tons of lentils along with 1,085 liters of cooking oil.

Information officer Sharmila Subedi admitted that the company has never been able to stock more than 25,000 metric tons of food grains even before.

“We never have 33,000 metric tons of food. It’s always around 20,000/22,000 thousand metric tons and up to 25,000 metric tons during peak season. There is a problem of food getting spoiled if the stock is kept for a long time. So we have maintained less stock of food,” said Subedi.

According to her, the current need is the operation of fair price shops targeting Dashain Tihar festivals. Newly-harvested paddy will start coming in almost immediately. Therefore, even if there is not enough stock, there is not much of a problem, added Subedi.

Stakeholders say that the government is to blame for not having enough food stocks with the state-owned companies. Consumer rights activist Madhav Timilsina said that the government did not set the support price for rice and wheat on time, released the budget late, started the purchase of rice and wheat late, and failed to purchase according to the target.

“Since the support price is fixed too late, the company cannot procure food in time. If there is no purchase in time, the company will have to buy rice again,” he said, adding this creates shortage of food all the time.

According to Timilsina, this happens when both the food companies and the government are irresponsible towards the citizens.

The government cannot intervene in the market to stop inflation when there is not enough food in the government’s own food store. Now the price of every food item in the market is on the rise. While the sugar stock with the government company is zero, its retail price in the market has reached Rs 135 per kg. The price of all types of rice has increased by up to Rs 100 per bag.

As the festive season approaches, traders and businessmen have started the monopoly of the market while black marketing has flourished. Government companies have only fulfilled their rituals in the name of opening fair-price shops.