in 1950's successive bad monsoons, led to a severe food crisis in 1955 india.Millions of people would have starved in india, if the US had not came to India’s rescue. That was how the famous PL 480 wheat import deal with US was signed by India in 1956.This was to continue for more than twenty years.India received 50 million tons, or nearly 40 percent of all food grains and 25 percent of all commodities given by the U.S. government under P.L. 480 from 1955 through 1971
P L 480 SIGNING CEREMONY- PRESIDENT EISENHOWER AND INDIAN MINISTER PATIL 1956 TO SUPPLY FOOD TO STARVING INDIA
.Since 1954, India was indeed repaying the wheat supply in Indian Rupees into a special RBI account. According to the agreement the USA was to use this money only for US investments in India and for paying off their local expenses. By 1971 it had built up to over 3billion US Dollars. India feared that the US access to such large amounts of money in India, at short notice could be used to destabilize the country.A proposal to write off 2.2 Billion $ and retain only 1.1 Billion $ for US expenses ,was passed in us senate, and on 18th Jan 1974, the US gave India a cheque for 2.2 Billion dollars and wrote off the account.The question, what was to be done with the Rupee balance in the PL480 account?It was decided to use this money to support English language publishing In India.The ELBS books, made by this arrangement , cost a third of the original, had “Low-Priced Edition” emblazoned across the cover.American Congress and various US libraries were able to use rupees from Indian purchases of U.S. agricultural products (PL 480) to buy Indian books. India agreed to repay the United States with multiple copies of all books published in the country for designated university libraries in the United States, beginning in 1961. The USAID New Delhi Field Office implementing the program started the thorough and systematic acquisition of publications in the modern languages of South Asia.
The american people who handled it complained of smelly books, and ALLERGY
The famed 'Congress grass weed' which is growing wild in many places .in india was imported along with american wheat ,accused india ;but refuted by america;was causing ALLERGIC syptoms
so a good deed by America ended in accusation of ALLERGY from both sides
Today India is the third largest English books producing country in the world and fully self sufficient, and an exporter of food