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New Delhi, July 19: Union minister for food and public distribution Ram Vilas Paswan Tuesday told the Lok Sabha during the question hour that the government has planned to construct specalised high quality food grain storage system in the form of silos across the country to prevent grain wastage.
Replying to a question asked by Badaun MP Dharmendra Yadav over preparedness of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) in checking wastage of food grains due to poor upkeep, Paswan said, ‘‘Government has approved a road map for construction of 100 lakh MT silos across the country in a phased manner by 2019-20. The silos will be built by FCI and other state agencies in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode through private investors.’’
Announcing the sanctioned number of silos for different states, Paswan said Orissa government has sanctioned construction of silos with 2 lakh tonne capacity to prevent food grains damage due to poor quality food storage systems.
The minister, however, said there is no shortage of storage capacity with the FCI which can lead to wastage of grains and works towards construction of advanced quality food storage systems are in the offing.
In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, the minister said 816.24 lakh MT capacity of storage is available for Central pool foodgrains against actual stock of 495.95 lakh MT by June 30, 2016.
The allocation is as per the requirement projected by the FCI on the basis of land made available by the states and status of the projects in the various states. The allocation is sufficient to meet the anticipated expenditure in various projects in 2016-17, the minister added.
