Foodgrains and their management: India
Most states can’t stock grains beyond 75 days
Pradeep Thakur TNN
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New Delhi: A CAG report on foodgrain management in the country paints a grim picture on the states’ capability to manage operational stock of foodgrain. Out of 31 states and Union territories, eight have storage capacities of 120 days.
Most poor states such as Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Assam do not have the capacity to handle stocks for more than 13-75 days. HP, Meghalaya, J&K, Jharkhand and Assam cannot even handle their stock for a month. Audit reveals that more than 1 lakh tonne of wheat worth Rs 122 crore was damaged in Punjab and Haryana alone in the last two years.
Despite the fact that over a hundred lakh tonnes of foodgrain stocks as old as 2007-08 were lying in the custody of states, the government continued on a procurement drive. Also, at a time when the government’s spend on food subsidy was estimated to touch Rs 1.25 lakh crore, it exported foodgrain from its overflowing reserves at subsidized rates causing loss of over Rs 1,700 crore (in 2012-13).