| Food Corporation of India do not have space to store 7mt of wheat
The lack of adequate storage capacity is a problem, it is aggravated when there is a bumper crop. Early winter rain has meant a bumper rabi(winter) crop of wheat this year but it also means that according to reliable sources 6.7m tonne(total wheat stock is 30.2m tonne) of wheat is being stored in the open. The spoilage rate on open storage is estimated to be in the range of 15-20%. If this is valued at the 'economic cost' of procurement of roughly Rs. 850 per quintal, Rs 570 crore of food-stock is being stored in the open, of which Rs 100 crores is likely to get destroyed. The problem of storing grain is much more acute in the case of wheat than rice. The problem of storing food-grains by agencies like the Food Corporation of India(FCI) is getting increasingly acute as production and procurement far outstrip storage capacity. |
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