After supplying rice fortified with factory-made micronutrients such as iron in the public distribution system all over the country as a solution to combat malnutrition and anaemia for years, the government on Friday, February 27, announced it will “temporarily discontinue” the measure. In a statement, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution cited the reasons as that the nutritional outcomes were not stable, while lakhs of tonnes of fortified rice piled up in central godowns.The ministry’s press release cited a study by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, to state that the large-scale rice fortification – in which a dried powder “pre-mix” of iron, vitamin B12 and folic acid is added to powdered rice and passed through a machine to resemble rice kernels – was not effective in diverse temperatures, humidity, and packaging and handling across India’s varied agro-climatic zones. This reduced micronutrient content and shelf life of such kernels, even as stocks were expected to reach on excess of need at 674 lakh metric tonnes from rice fortification last year.Tarsem Singh Saini, president of Rice Millers Association, told The Wire that his association, of over 90,000 millers as members, had argued for the past several years that the scheme is ineffective as quality checks could not be met: “Now, more than two years of fortified rice stocks have piled up and there is no demand for such fortified rice outside the public distribution system,” said Saini. He said the association had met the minister Prahlad Joshi in the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in January. He also pointed out that that there was now greater demand for custom-milled rice for producing ethanol, while the stocks of fortified rice are piling up.James Herenj, an activist with Right to Food Campaign, had taken part in fact-finding visits to villages to examine potential of harm of excessive iron intake through intake of fortified rice on communities such as those living with blood disorders in Adivasi villages. “The government did not take any public health concerns or regional availability of diverse foods into account, and wasted public funds” said Herenj, on the phone from Latehar, Jharkhand. “It was a direct attack on our food sovereignty which they have had to now roll back.”Kavita Kurganti, an activist with the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, said that the campaign had maintained for years that large-scale fortification would not reduce anaemia in an effective and safe way: “The government is citing a face-saving study after this has proven to not work.”A three-part series on The Wire had investigated the lack of scientific consensus around the scheme’s health benefits, and a lack of preparedness, infrastructure and choice for states to carry out such fortification, even as some traditional rice varieties in India are more nutritious and iron-rich. In the final piece, the series documented how India’s national food safety body had inaugurated a ‘Food Fortification Resource Center’ in the presence of Bill Gates, staffed with members belonging entities funded by the Gates Foundation, to draw up a policy to supply fortified rice in the public distribution system covering 80 crore Indians.Despite nearly half of the pilots in 15 states in 2021 failing to take off, in March 2022, the government made fortified rice compulsory in the children’s schemes in creches, school meals. From March 2023 onwards, it introduced it in ration, or the public distribution scheme, scaling it up to all nutrition schemes for vulnerable women and children and the poor by 2024. As per government data, between 2019-20 and March 31, 2024, approximately 406 lakh metric tonnes of fortified rice were distributed through public schemes with a budget of over Rs 2,500 crore a year, and the scheme was set to go on till at least 2028.