Some time past when there was scarcity of foodgrains, attempts were made to make procurement from certain wholesale merchants and from rice mills. In my own state, I know of many instances of such procurement where, after making known that certain things had to be done and certain steps had to be taken by the merchant community, nothing was done later on by the Government, when they found that these very orders of the Government were violated. As a result of the violations, there was a consequent rise in the prices of foodgrains. In respect of other commodities like iron and steel. Paper, etc., we see a lot of speculative activities, but the provisions of the act have not been brought to bear on them. Perhaps, no case of prosecution was launched against those people who contravened the various provisions of the Act. We are interested to know in how many cases the Government have taken steps to prosecute individuals who have violated the various sections of the act! The Minister said that the Powers under the act Were not adequate? We sympathise with the food minister but I want to know what action has been taken in this regard by the various state Government? In regard to the Amending Provisions, I want to know from the Minister what would be his difficulty even if minor offences are taken to courts of law! The toll in Uttarkhand's Chamoli disaster went up to 71 on Thursday, according to the State public information bureau. The identities of 40 bodies have been established while 30 human body parts have so far been found at different places. The police have sent the DNA samples from 110 family members of the missing persons and 86 bodies/body parts to the forensic science laboratory in Dehradun for matching. India's active Covid-19 case load was 1,51,780 on Thursday, making up 1.37% of the total positive cases. No one would have been happier than ourselves if we had the means of eliminating these groups from the scope of compulsory savings, but in our country, by far the major porition of the population is poor and unless the poorer sections are also made to save, we cannot hope to build the country's future prosperity.
