(IN) Keralites :Eat chicken and become prosperous

[Guest guest]

Please read the following pronouncement from our Honourable Minister for Food

and Civil Supplies.

He is also our Minister for Animal Husbandry.

 

Saturday, December 08, 2007 Updated: 03:53 am

 

Eat eggs, chicken if rice is costly: Divakaran

 

As the State continues to reel under the unprecedented rise in the prices

ofrice, Food and Civil Supplies Minister C Divakaran has advised people to

transform their food habits to suit those of the liberalised world. " Won't a

glass of milk and two eggs do in place of the meals for a time? " he asked while

inaugurating the State Livestock Conservation Fair at Peringottukara in Trissur

on Friday.

 

In a speech underlined with sarcasm, Divakaran said eggs, milk and chicken meat

could be far more nutritious than rice. Malayalees should learn new food habits,

he said. His speech ironically did not make any mention of any official steps to

control the prices of various varieties of rice, which had already caused much

hardship to the common people of the State.

 

The Minister said that the transformation need not be confined to food

habit but it could be applied to cultivation scene as well. He said instead of

rice, Keralites could try farm chicken. This would also help rice prices come

down, he added.

 

The Minister's sarcastic advises naturally failed to evoke applause from the

crowd, but several people were heard asking whether problems in the LDF had made

the Minister insensitive to people's problem.

 

" This is an affront at the common man of this State. The most serious

aspect of his comments is that these had not come from any Minister but the one

whose duty it was to see that the people had at least two square meals a day.

Instead he is trying to mock the poor people, " said a toddy-tapping worker

belonging to the AITUC, the trade union of the Minister's own party, CPI.

 

In a stark contrast to the speech of Divakaran, CPI(M) leader and

Cooperation Minister G Sudhakaran, who had on several occasions proved more

effective than Divakaran in times of rice in the prices of essential

commodities, proposed certain concrete steps to alleviate the miseries of the

poor in the context of the rice price rise.

 

After a meeting of officials of all organisations related to the

Cooperation Department, including Consumerfed in Kochi, Sudhakaran told newsmen

that his department would open 4,180 fair price rice shops in the State. He said

these shops would sell rice at Rs 14 a kilo. Sudhakaran also informed that

thousand Christmas markets would be opened across the State in the coming days.

 

Rice prices continued to stay at high levels despite reports that rice from

Andhra Pradesh was on the way to Kerala. Slight downslide in price was reported

from Kozhikode market, but the prices generally were in the range of Rs 18.50

per kilo of Kuruva, a popular variety, across Kerala.