Memories of the mid-Nineteen Sixties rice shortageinTamil Nadu

Back within the mid-Nineteen Sixties, Tamil Nadu had confronted a spell of acute scarcity of rice. Politically, the rice drawback of the Nineteen Sixties had value the Congress dearly because the get together was thrown out of energy in the course of the 1967 Assembly election. Since then, the get together has not been in a position to get again to energy. The then Chief Minister M. Bakthavatsalam continues to be blamed for the way in which his regime had dealt with the disaster.

Even because the nation, for the reason that late Fifties, started implementing well-meaning options of the Ashok Mehta panel that went into causes of worth rise of foodgrains throughout 1956 and 1957, it encountered back-to-back drought in 1965 and 1966. The manufacturing of rice within the two years went down by about 20%, in comparison with 1964-65, when the nation produced 39 million tonnes. Foodgrains had been nonetheless imported from the worldwide market to fulfill the shortfall, preserving in thoughts the scarcely obtainable overseas reserves. While Myanmar and Thailand had been among the many supplier-countries of rice to India, the United States, below the Public Law (PL) 480 settlement, equipped wheat and milo to the nation.

As a sequel to the Ashok Mehta committee’s findings, truthful worth outlets had been established and the system of rice procurement of rice was put in place. Besides, Tamil Nadu together with Andhra Pradesh shared the accountability of discovering the rice required for distribution in Kerala, which was not one among the many main rice-producing States. Tamil Nadu’s manufacturing was stagnating at about 3.5 million tonnes with the yield of 1.4 tonnes per hectare. High yielding selection seeds had been launched solely in 1965. Moreover, increasingly individuals had been switching over to rice from millets, rising the stress on the system that was struggling to fulfill even the prevailing demand for rice. Even by the mid-Nineteen Sixties, the State had reached virtually the saturation level with regard to the event of its floor water assets.

The scenario of rice availability in Tamil Nadu began turning into severe even in 1964. The Hindu, in a information report on October 7, 1964, acknowledged that “Thanjavur district, the ‘rice bowl’ of the Madras State [which was how the State was called then], has been experiencing very nice issue for the final six weeks in assembly the native calls for for rice and every day one can see lengthy queues in each city and village within the district ready for hours to get their every day quota.”

The harm to the crop raised in the course of the Samba cultivation season in 1963; the federal government’s follow of fixing rice worth previous to the willpower of paddy worth; millers, who got the duty of buying paddy on behalf of the federal government, viewing the procurement system as one which “killed their initiative and incentive”; lack of shares obtainable with the millers throughout lean months and “mass export” of rice to Kerala at “fancy costs” had been among the many causes cited. [The Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation, the State government’s procurement agency, came into being only in 1972].

The authorities had then launched punitive motion towards regulation violators. It was then that the State authorities started contemplating the query of introducing household playing cards to shoppers to attract their provides of foodgrains within the capital and different necessary cities of the State. Later that month, within the Assembly, the Congress authorities, led by Bhaktavatsalam, had obtained flak from the DMK and the Communist Party of India (CPI), which had criticised it for being “inefficient” in dealing with the problem.

In 1965, the War with Pakistan compelled the Union authorities and State governments to assessment the foodgrains place, in response to the then Chief Minister Bhaktavatsalam in his memoir revealed in 1971. Due to the insistence of the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Union Food Minister C. Subramaniam, the statutory rationing system was launched in Madras metropolis and Coimbatore, though the Chief Minister felt that the scenario might be managed with out rationing. The subsequent 12 months – 1966 – witnessed an “unprecedented drought and lack,” Bhaktavatsalam states. It was on this 12 months that the controversy over rice by the general public distribution system received aggravated, though the Chief Minister had defined intimately how his authorities managed the scenario amid extreme constraints. He contends that regardless of the autumn in manufacturing and procurement throughout 1966, the amount of rice distributed to the individuals didn’t go down.

However, C. Subramaniam, in his memoir (revealed in 1995), blames his get together’s authorities within the State for “bungling” within the distribution of foodgrains, which had been “greater than sufficient.” Pointing out that “there have been lengthy queues earlier than the truthful worth outlets which, in some locations, stretched one mile lengthy,” Subramaniam provides that “on the eve of the [Assembly] elections, the provides had been decreased, making a panic scenario all through the State.”

Regardless of the correctness or in any other case of both of the variations, the episode of rice scarcity taught a bitter lesson to the Congress. It stays educative for Bhaktavatsalam’s successors.