Chandigarh April 12:
Amid Punjab reeling under severe foodgrain storage crisis, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Siraj Hussain on Monday met senior officials of the State.
“During the meeting, the issue of new storage capacities being added in Punjab was discussed by the FCI CMD with Punjab officials among other issues like rice delivery to Central pool,” said a senior official of the FCI. Notably, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal last week had sought intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking building of new storage capacities and movement of old food grain stock to other States.
In the meeting, it was pointed out that the bids for adding fresh storage capacities to the tune of 7.56 lakh tonnes in Punjab have been called on. “The bids have been called from those areas where earlier response was not encouraging,” said the official, adding new capacity has been proposed to be set up in various districts including Ferozepur, Jalandhar, Amritsar, etc. “The new capacities are expected to be ready by July next year,” he said.
Under the Centre’s proposed programme of building new storage capacities, the bids for setting up over 13 lakh tonnes of new capacities had already been approved by Centre in the State which would come up before the next wheat lifting season. Punjab, this year, is expecting higher wheat procurement than the last year during rabi season. Wheat procurement from Punjab in the last season stood at around 10 million tonnes out of the country’s total of 22.5 million tonnes.
At present, Punjab has storage capacity of 50 lakh tonnes and the Centre has recently sanctioned 13 lakh tonnes additional capacity recently under Private Public Partnership (PPP) mode. Even though, the state till is in need of another 32 lakh tonnes of storage capacity. As during the last season, the state faced a shortage of storing almost 80 lakh MT of food grains.
Amid Punjab reeling under severe foodgrain storage crisis, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Siraj Hussain on Monday met senior officials of the State.
“During the meeting, the issue of new storage capacities being added in Punjab was discussed by the FCI CMD with Punjab officials among other issues like rice delivery to Central pool,” said a senior official of the FCI. Notably, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal last week had sought intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking building of new storage capacities and movement of old food grain stock to other States.
In the meeting, it was pointed out that the bids for adding fresh storage capacities to the tune of 7.56 lakh tonnes in Punjab have been called on. “The bids have been called from those areas where earlier response was not encouraging,” said the official, adding new capacity has been proposed to be set up in various districts including Ferozepur, Jalandhar, Amritsar, etc. “The new capacities are expected to be ready by July next year,” he said.
Under the Centre’s proposed programme of building new storage capacities, the bids for setting up over 13 lakh tonnes of new capacities had already been approved by Centre in the State which would come up before the next wheat lifting season. Punjab, this year, is expecting higher wheat procurement than the last year during rabi season. Wheat procurement from Punjab in the last season stood at around 10 million tonnes out of the country’s total of 22.5 million tonnes.
At present, Punjab has storage capacity of 50 lakh tonnes and the Centre has recently sanctioned 13 lakh tonnes additional capacity recently under Private Public Partnership (PPP) mode. Even though, the state till is in need of another 32 lakh tonnes of storage capacity. As during the last season, the state faced a shortage of storing almost 80 lakh MT of food grains.
