New Delhi: The Government today (Dec 13, 2004) said it had not received any information about starvation deaths during the last three years.

Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Akhilesh Prasad Singh told Lok Sabha (LS) in a written reply that five task force teams had been deputed by the Centre since September 2002 in the places where press and electronic media highlighted alleged starvation deaths.

The teams had been sent to Rayagada and Keonjhar districts of Orissa, Baran district of Rajasthan, Vidhisha and Shivpuri districts of Madhya Pradesh, Banswara district of Rajasthan and Madhepura district of Bihar, he said. In none of the cases, starvation deaths had been reported by the teams.

To another query, he said the Centre was allocating food grains (wheat and rice) to all the people living below poverty line (BPL) in the country on the basis of population projections of the Registrar of India as on March 1, 2000 and poverty ratio determined by the Planning Commission.

As much as 35 kgs of food grains per month was provided for each BPL family irrespective of age and sex.

Sugar: Singh said the stock of white sugar available in the country was sufficient to meet the consumption requirement of sugar for the year 2004-05.

He said Government was not contemplating to amend the existing Sugar Development Fund Act, 1982.

The Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said in a vast network of about 4.76 lakh fair price shops throughout the country, the possibility of black marketing of food grains could not be ruled out.