Food Corporation of India plans to construct silos to modernise warehousing. A capacity of 20 lakh tonnes silo capacity is proposed to be created in 10 states on PPP basis. These silos will be connected via rail network and handling of stocks at receiving and dispatching ends will be in bulk thereby minimising storage and transit losses
Announcing the project in Lok Sabha recently, Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Prof. K.V. Thomas said that storage capacity available with FCI and the state agencies put together was about 75.60 million tonnes, which was sufficient to take care of storage requirements under the National Food Security Act.
The minister added that the estimated allocation of food grains (wheat + rice) under NFSA would be 61.2 million tonnes which was slightly higher than the current allocation level of 55.1 million tonnes. Thus, offtake would increase and this would give relief to the requirement of storage space.
