Subsidies for building godowns held up

Entrepreneurs have built the much-needed warehouses to store farm produce across the country, but payment of subsidies to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore has been held up by the government due to lack of funds.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture, chaired by BJP member Hukum Deo Narayan Yadav, has rapped the government for holding up the payment of subsidies which may hamper the creation of additional storage facilities for food grains.

“The committee was distressed to note that the lack of funds was holding up the disbursement of subsidies amounting to Rs 1,000 crore to the beneficiaries who had completed the construction of godowns, which was causing them undue hardship,” the committee said in its report submitted to Parliament last week.

India’s food grain demand is expected to touch 281 million metric tonnes by 2020-21, which will require a storage capacity of 196 million metric tonnes. The total storage capacity currently available is estimated to be around 144.68 million metric tonnes.

According to officials, 14.2 million metric tonnes of storage capacity is under construction and is expected to be available shortly, which still leaves a shortfall of 37.12 million tonnes of storage space by 2020-21.

The Committee has suggested to the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC) to take up the matter with the finance ministry “at the highest level” to ensure that adequate funding is released at the earliest.

According to the DAC, the finance ministry had recently made Rs 200 crore available from the Krishi Kalyan Cess for the scheme to create additional storage facilities.

It has also urged the finance ministry to provide additional funds through a supplementary grant.