NEW DELHI: The Centre has developed an online portal to collect details about government and private warehouses, a move that will enable monitoring of storage availability on a real-time basis, a senior Food Ministry official said on Tuesday.
This will also help to know real-time foodgrain stock available in any of the warehouses in the country, he said.
The portal has been designed in view of the delay in timely collection of warehouse data, and lack of platform to collect private warehouse details and storage capacity, he added.
According to the official, "Creation of an online portal is a step closer to achieve the objective of National Food Security Act (NFSA) in a transparent manner."
Unavailability of details and data on storage in private warehouses has previously hindered the government in making well-informed decisions to ensure food security in the country, he said.
Sharing more about the new initiative, the official said any private warehouse owner can register on the portal and enter the warehouse and stock details.
The registration of the private warehouse is very user-friendly in which name, mobile number, and email address are collected and the user registration will be activated by the Food Ministry.
After the account is activated, a user can log in and enter warehouse storage capacity as well as month-wise stock details.
The user has to enter both agriculture commodity stock and non-agriculture commodity stock separately.
The website has a feature of a dashboard for real-time monitoring of all India positions of storage capacity and stocks, the official added.