FCI scales new heights in food grain supply

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) has seen an unprecedented scaling up of its operations over the last three months.

To ensure food security in the state during the Covid-19 pandemic, the FCI had to increase its operations by 220%, receiving and distributing 32 lakh metric tonnes of food grains between April and July this year. This, with a storage capacity of just 8.50 lakh metric tonnes across all its godowns in the
state.

Usually, the state government requires about 4.50 lakh MT of grains every month for all the welfare schemes. However, in the past three months, officials have received and distributed more than twice this quantity. This meant, 604 rakes of food grains in the three-month period, amounting to 6.40 lakh bags of grains everyday (with each bag containing 50 kg
of grains).

This includes ration under the National Food Security Act, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (introduced in March this year to address the Covid crisis), special scheme for migrant labourers, the open market scheme under which the state government buys from FCI, among other welfare schemes.

Since the lockdown was in force, the corporation had two challenges to overcome in distributing ration: Time and availability of labour. They were operating with 40% of their regular strength, said G N Raju, general manager of FCI, Karnataka region, recounting how the corporation managed such a massive scale-up of operations.

“Many were from other states went back home during this period. Others, who came from far away villages, couldn’t find transport to get to work. Hence, we had to hire workers through contractors,” he explained. In order to save time, they resorted to direct delivery of grains from the goodsheds to the state godowns (as opposed to first storing them in FCI godowns like they
normally do), he added.

Further, sometime in May, the FCI also prepared for any eventuality arising from a peak in Covid cases, by stocking up ration. Hence, even as the Centre announced free ration under PMGKAY till November, the FCI has the stock which lasts up to August, apart from a stock of grains available up tgo September for supplying ration under NFSA.

The FCI caters to 1.27 crore ration card holders (covering 4.31 crore people) in Karnataka under central NFSA, apart from 8 lakh ration cards (covering 27 lakh people) under state
NFSA.