The Chief Minister has announced that wheat will now be provided at Rs. 1 per kilogram and rice at Rs. 2 per kilogram to below poverty line families. This decision will come into force from June this year. Half of Madhya Pradesh i.e. around 3.5 crore people will benefit from the subsidy being provided under the scheme. They include 8 lakh Antyodaya and 56 lakh BPL families. This decision will put a burden of Rs. 360 crore on the state exchequer.

At present, 35 Kg. of foodgrains is being provided to Antyodaya families and 20 Kg. to BPL families per month under Mukhyamantri (Chief Minister) Annapurna Yojana. The State government is already bearing a subsidy burden of Rs. 470 crore on this scheme. With the new scheme, the burden will touch the record figure of Rs. 800 crores.

It must be noted here that the decision by the state government to provide foodgrains at special concessional rates to BPL and Antyodaya families came ahead of the proposed food security Bill of the Union Government. The bill proposes to provide wheat at the rate of Rs. 2 kg. and rice at Rs. 3 per kg. It is obvious that the new decision has been taken to hoodwink the Central government and also to tell the people that the Bharatiya Janata Party is more liberal and large-hearted than the Congress. The Chief Minister has made this gesture in view of the assembly elections, which are due to take place in the month of November this year.

An official communiqué issued after the Chief Minister's announcement said that Madhya Pradesh was receiving foodgrains from the Union government for BPL families including wheat at the rate of Rs. 5 kg. and rice at Rs. 6.50 per kg. The state government also bears transportation cost and commission cost.

In its bid to further please the voters, the state government has also decided to provide iodised salt to BPL and Antyodaya families at the rate of Re. 1 per kg in all the 313 development blocks of the state with effect from June 2013. At present this facility is being provided in only 89 tribal-dominated development blocks in the state. This decision would put an additional burden of Rs. 40 crore per annum on the state government.

Reacting to the Chef Minister's announcement regarding supply in foodgrains at highly subsidised rates, leader of opposition in the state Assembly Ajay Singh said that the Chief Minister had again resorted to the cheap trick of appropriating credit for the schemes of the central government.

While the Chief Minister announced the scheme of supplying foodgrains at extraordinarily concessional rates, the worsening law and order situation, in particular the alarming increase in the number of rape cases, has robbed him of the propaganda benefit which he would have otherwise gained. A leading newspaper reported that 88 minors were raped in the period of 90 day in the state.

The rape incidents involving minors are more brutal and cruel.

The five-year old rape victim in New Delhi has fortunately become medically stable at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) but another 5-year-old girl-raped, battered and left to die in the fields of Seoni district in Madhya Pradesh on April 18, continues to be in critical condition at Care Medical Centre in Nagpur (Maharashtra).

A day later, in another corner of the state, a seven-year-old was raped and killed. Both girls were taken away by the accused, who were known to family members, luring them with promise of food articles, only to be brutalised later.

Even as the citizens have reacted vehemently against the brutal incident in Delhi, the cases in MP have failed to evoke as much response, probably because it is almost every day that child rapes are reported in the state. By very conservative estimates, at least 88 cases of minor rapes have been reported in different parts of the state during the last 90 days. Of these, 27 victims were below ten years of age.

However, the actual figures might be higher considering the National Crime Records Bureau's records state that 1,182 rapes with minors were reported in 2010 in the state.

Though there are no separate figures available on the basis of age among minor rape victims, a cursory look at the list of the incidents (between January 20 and April 20, 2013) indicates that the age of the victims is going down and the level of brutality displayed by the perpetrators is increasing.

Right from the eight-year-old girl who was raped and killed just a stone's throw away from the state Home Minister's official residence, the three-year-old, who was so petrified after being raped by her father that she refused to be touched by doctors, to a one-and-half year old who was brutalised in Shahdol, the list is simply shocking. It would seem that either the criminals are getting psychologically depraved with each passing day or are simply targeting the most gullible-the little girls who could hardly suspect or protest.

Along with the police, it has become a major challenge for the society to save the little daughters. (IPA Service)