40,000 MT of extra rice for State every month

Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution K V Thomas on Monday said the state will be receiving 40,000 metric tonnes (MT) of rice as an additional supply every month from July 5.

  Speaking to mediapersons on the sidelines of an event here, Thomas said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Home Minister K G George had met him in Delhi last week and the decision to supply additional food grains was taken there. Besides, the normal allocation of 1.77 lakh metric tonnes of  food grains to the state, the Centre would be supplying additional 40,000 metric tonnes of rice this week from Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Chattisgarh.

The minister said that he is planning to put a proposal before the Union Cabinet to supply additional 50 lakh tonnes of food grains throughout the country and Karnataka too would get its share.

There is no scarcity of food grains in the country and, the government was incurring a cost of Rs 18 for BPL and Rs 12 for APL families under the public distribution system (PDS).
He praised the PDS in the state and said that it is one of the best in the country.  
Warehouse modernisation

Thomas interacted with customers at the Central Railside Warehouse Company Limited (CRWC) at Whitefield here. He emphasised on the need for modernising CRWC and said that CRWC should not depend on manual labour alone as it is a health hazard for these labourers to continuously work in a dusty environment.  The minister directed the authorities to provide canteen, water and toilet facilities for the labourers who work round the clock.

Major rail route

CRWC, which was started in 2002 is a major rail route warehouse company located in Whitefield, which receives cargo, mainly cement and fertilisers. The company receives 50 lakh tonnes of cement per month by 16 trains from Delhi and Guwahati.

Thomas said that after he took over as the minister, the capacity of food grains storing and transportation has increased from 55 million tonnes to 75 million tonnes, of which 60 million tonnes are always being transported from one place to another. The damages during storage has decreased from 2.5 per cent to 0.07 per cent, he added.