Excess food grain stocks set to meet domestic needs

The Dollar Business Bureau The total stock of food grains in the Government of India’s central pool, in February, stood against and more than the minimum buffer storage, resulting in an adequate requirement that is expected to meet the domestic supplies. In a recent official release, it was notified that the stock of food grains in the central pool as on February 16, 2015 was 353.67 lakh tons, which is against and more than the minimum buffer storage of 214.10 lakh tons, for January-March quarter in 2015. The adequate storage is expected to help the government in meeting the requirements under Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) and other welfare schemes. For a better TPDS, the government is also implementing a scheme for end-end computerisation of TPDS with a total approved cost of Rs 884.07 crore, throughout the country, in a move to provide technical assistance to the States and all the Union Territories over the storage issues. Under this project called ‘Mission Mode Project’ that has National Informatics Centre as a technical partner, the government has already released an amount of Rs 257.01 crore and further funds would be released based on the requirement proposals to be put forth by the concerned state departments, informed Raosaheb Patil Danve, Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution. Digitization of beneficiary database, computerisation of Supply Chain Management, installation of Grievance Redressal Mechanism and Transparency Portal were the key issues to be taken up by the government under the scheme and the Centre’s Central Project Monitoring Unit (CPMU) will monitor the progress of the scheme. The Scheme that is aimed at better targeting of food subsidies is also expected to enable identification of beneficiaries, removal of bogus cards and timely availability of food grains to intended beneficiaries at Fair Price Shops (FPS). The government, in another move, has allocated 100 lakh MT of wheat for market sale through e-auctions to the bulk consumers and private traders under Open Market Sale Scheme Domestic, which would last till the end of March, 2015. In contrast to this, a sale of 38 lakh tonnes of wheat was put in place for sale during 2014-15 with a period limit that ended on February 19, 2015 at an average price Rs 1614.40/- per quintal. Besides this, the Government has also fixed a target of 350.50 lakh MT for procurement of rice for ongoing Kharif Marketing Season of 2014-15 and a target of 300 lakh MT has been set up for wheat procurement for Rabi Marketing Season (RMS) of 2015-16.  In view of excess procurement that has gone beyond targets and increase in central pool stocks beyond the prescribed buffer norms, the government has made the availability of food grains at reasonable prices despite a shortage  in  rainfall, the Minister added.  

This article was published on March 03, 2015.