NEW DELHI: In a bid to strengthen food security and prevent distress sold by farmers due to lack of storage, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a scheme worth Rs 1 lakh crore to increase the food grain storage capacity by 700 lakh tonnes in the cooperative sector.
The scheme, which is being envisaged as the world’s “largest grain storage plan in the cooperative sector”, aims to converge different schemes of the Ministry of agriculture and Farmers’ welfare, ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution, and Ministry of food processing industries.
The capacity addition to store 700 lakh tonne will be completed in a time-frame of the five-year period , said Union Minister Anurag Singh Thakur while announcing the decision taken by the Cabinet in New Delhi on Wednesday.
India at present is having a storage capacity of 1,450 lakh tonne which allows storage of only 47 per cent of its grains produced in the country. Under the existing storage infrastructure, a significant portion of the produce gets wasted every year or is sold off by farmers in distress due to a lack of storage facilities. Thakur said that the programme will start “with an expenditure of around Rs 1 lakh crore. As per the scheme design, each block will get a godown of 2,000-tonne capacity.
To facilitate the project, an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) will be constituted under the Chairmanship of Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah. The Minister of Agriculture and Farmer's Welfare, the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, the Minister of Food Processing Industries and the respective secretaries will be members.
The Inter-Ministerial Committee will be empowered to modify guidelines and implementation methodologies of the schemes of the respective ministries as and when a need arises, within the approved outlays and prescribed goals that would facilitate the creation of infrastructure such as godowns and storage facilities for Agriculture and Allied purposes at selected ‘viable’ Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS).
The plan would be implemented by utilising the available outlays provided under the identified schemes of the respective ministries in the Union Budget. As per the plan, the National Level Coordination Committee will be formed in the next seven days and the implementation guidelines will be issued within 15 days of the Cabinet approval.
Also, a portal for the linkage of PACS with Central and state governments will be rolled out within 45 days of the Cabinet approval and the implementation of the proposal will start within 45 days of the decision. With more than 1,00,000 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies in the country with a member base of more than 13 crore farmers the initiative has been undertaken to set up decentralised storage capacity at the level of PACS along with other agri infrastructure, which would not only strengthen the food security of the country but would also enable PACS to transform themselves into vibrant economic entities, Thakur said.
The plan would be implemented by utilising the available outlays under the identified schemes of the respective ministries in the Union Budget. The National Level Coordination Committee will be formed by next week and the implementation guidelines will be issued within 15 days of the Cabinet approval. Also, a portal for the linkage of PACS with Central and State Governments will be rolled out within 45 days of the Cabinet approval and the implementation of the proposal will start within 45 days of the decision.