During the last few days, questions and replies in the Assam Assembly relating to the food situation in the State have been a major cause for concern. This is not to suggest that we repose unquestioned faith in the replies and statistics furnished in Assembly or Parliament. But in a scenario where ministers are often obliged to furnish incorrect information to the House and to retract later on, even the inaccurate information gives clear indications of the general drift of the problems that the country or the State faces. The replies given by Asom's Agriculture Minister on the floor of the Assembly to questions relating to the State's agriculture generally boil down to one alarming fact of life: that the agricultural production of the State has declined to such a low level that the State is obliged to squander astronomical sums of money to import rice and other foodstuff from other States. One bit of information is that Asom spends Rs 900 crore a year to buy rice from other States, since the State needs about 12,000 metric tonnes of rice every day. It is possible that these figures are somewhat inflated, but even so, the fact remains that astronomical sums of money do go out from a State with an