New Delhi: Expressing concern over "rising hunger and under-nourishment" under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Government, Congress today (Feb 25, 2004) said these were a few other "shining" examples of the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) Government which claims presence of abundant food stocks in the country.

"Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's legacy is not just mounting unemployment but also growing hunger and under-nourishment" Jairam Ramesh, Secretary in the AICC's (All India Congress Committee) economic department, told reporters in New Delhi.

Quoting UN Food and Agricultural Organisation's (FAO) 'State of Food Insecurity' report, he said the international agency had stated that number of hungry people have increased after 1996-97.

"After seeing a decline of 20 million in the number of undernourished people between 1990-92 and 1996-97, the number of hungry people in India increased by 19 million over the following years," he said quoting the FAO report.

Ramesh said the FAO report had confirmed what Congress had all along been saying with regard to economic health and growing poverty in India.

He said that in the last three years, the Congress President had written over ten letters to Vajpayee on food security and had suggested specific steps for dealing with them, but there have been no response to it.

The NDA Government also did not respond favourably to the suggestions made by Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled states about the nation-wide rural employment guarantee scheme using surplus food stocks, he said, adding that food stocks were piling up in recent times simply because people purchased less from ration shops.