Centre ask states to build intermediate storages to ease pressure on FCI godowns

In a bid to meet Public Distribution System (PDS) requirement, the Union food ministry has asked state governments to lift PDS food-grains needed for at least six months and build intermediate storages to ease pressure on Food Corporation of India’s (FCI) godowns. The storage capacity of FCI is 64 million tonnes and at present, the stock is about 82-83 million tonnes. However, despite shortage of storage, losses and storage damages have been cut to merely 0.006 percent or less than one lakh tonnes out of the total stock. While, five year back the loss was 2.5 percent.

Meanwhile, the country expected to have bumper production of wheat and rice this year. The wheat production is estimated at about 902.30 lakh tonnes with procurement estimated at 370 lakh tonnes for the public distribution system during the current year while, rice output will be over 1,034.1 lakh tonnes with procurement at about 353.15 lakh tonnes.

Further, the freight constituents of the food-grain price have been waived by the Ministry under the open market sale scheme. These measures are intended at bringing down the bulging buffer stocks that are over 82 million tonnes.