Nearly 5 years right after the government announced an ambitious strategy to make one hundred lakh tonne capacity of silos below public private partnerchip (PPP) mode, only 8.25 lakh tonne of such modern day warehousing space has been produced, the government stated in Lok Sabha.
As the protesting farmer leaders against the 3 contentious farm laws have been alleging that warehouses had been initial produced by corporates to retailer the foodgrains followed by the amendment in the Essential Commodities Act, the creation of silos might additional slow down.
“ln order to upgrade and modernise the storage facilities, the government has chalked out an Action Plan in 2O16 for construction of steel silos on PPP mode in the country. Silos with capacity of 3O.75 lakh tonne at various locations throughout country have been awarded.
Out of which a capacity of 8.25 lakh tonne is complete and remaining is under various stages of development,” meals minister Piyush Goyal stated in a written reply in Lok Sabha on Tuesday. Of total produced capacity, 4.5 lakh tonne is in Madhya Pradesh and 3.75 lakh tonne is in Punjab.
Actually, the target was to full the building of silos in 3 phases by FY20 and there was inordinate delays in the procedure from the pretty starting, initial at approval stage in Niti Aayog and later at the implementation stage, sources stated. One cause for which it got delayed was on the ground that the storage loss has been constantly decreasing even with regular warehousing program, sources stated.
The storage losses of Food Corporation of India (FCI) came down drastically to .03% in 2019-20 from .22% in 2012-13. The total worth of storage loss of FCI was Rs 457.13 crore in 2013-14, according to official information. The total meals grains broken throughout 2020-21 was 1,806 tonne, as on February 28. One of the important benefit of silos is that it needs only one-third region of a regular warehouse to retailer the exact same quantity of grains with vertical expansion and with full automation of loading and unloading.
According to former chairman of FCI Siraj Hussain, “if wheat can be procured at silos, the procurement incidentals incurred in APMC mandis or procurement centres of co-operatives can be saved.” Though some quantity was procured from farmers at silos in Punjab and Haryana, the Centre could not keep away from 2.5% commission of arthiyas. From this year onwards, FCI is attempting to procure wheat in Punjab without having paying arthiya commission for which it has asked the state government to share farmers’ information so that payment is straight transferred into their bank accounts.
In a separate reply, minister of state for meals Danve Raosaheb Dadarao stated in Lok Sabha that standard warehouses as nicely as silos have been planned in spot of “dilapidated godowns, end-of-life godowns, cover and plinth (CAP) complexes and on vacant land of FCI.” While the total capacity of FCI (such as hired godowns) to retailer Central Pool foodgrains is 80.7 million tonne, the stock was 56.2 million tonne as on January 31.
Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait has been alleging in most of his public meetings across the nation that the amendment in the EC Act was carried out to aid corporates stock the grains for which warehouses have been constructed prior to the modifications in the laws. The government has removed stock holding limits for quite a few foodstuffs such as cereals and pulses though generating it linked with value rise of 50% (non-horticulture create) and one hundred% (horticulture create) inside a fixed period.
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