BW Communities

Rising Grain Procurement Adds To Storage Woes

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[Rising wheat and rice procurement for the last few years are adding to the grain storage problem in Punjab, which arose due to slow movement of grain to other states and limited space in granaries. With a bumper wheat production expected this season ending June 2011, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, seeking help in augmenting storage capacity and fast disbursal of old food grain stock from granaries to accommodate the new crop. "Excessive procurement of food grain (wheat and paddy) from Punjab is one of the reasons, besides constraints like insufficient rail rakes, that have led to accumulation of old stock occupying the storage space (leaving less space for storing fresh crop)," a senior FCI official told PTI on Thursday. The FCI data shows wheat and rice procurement from the country's food bowl have grown considerably over the past five years on the back of higher output. Wheat lifting from Punjab reached 102.18 lakh Metric Tonne (MT) in 2010-11, as against just 69.46 lakh MT in 2006-07. In 2009-10 also, it broke all previous records by contributing 107.36 lakh MT to the central pool. Similarly, rice procurement has also gone up to 93.29 lakh MT in 2010-11 against 77.93 lakh MT in 2006-07. Punjab has 95 lakh MT of covered space, the majority of which is occupied by wheat and rice, with the effect that the state faces a shortage of over 70 lakh MT of space to store the crops, a fact highlighted by the Chief Minister during his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. "Before the start of wheat lifting season, there should not be any stock of old crop in storage because the space would be needed to store fresh crop," said Punjab Food and Supplies, Secretary, DS Grewal. "Besides affecting the quality of rice, space shortage force the state authorities to store crop (wheat) in open and in the rice mills that lead to deterioration in the quality of grain," he said. As on April 1, granaries in the state are still holding last year?s wheat stock of 51 lakh MT and 61 lakh MT of rice, forcing Punjab to store almost 105 lakh MT of fresh arrival at the open plinths. The state needs to find a quick and lasting solution to avoid rotting of food grains in the absence of adequate storage. Initially, the Centre had decided to build 71 lakh MT of new storage capacities in Punjab. However, it later pruned this to 51 lakh MT under Private Entrepreneurship Guarantee Scheme. Further, to the state's request for transferring every month almost 25 lakh MT of wheat and rice lying in state granaries to other states, FCI has so far managed to shift 15 lakh MT of wheat and rice to the best of its abilities. Notably, storage houses in Punjab are still holding over 50 lakh MT each of wheat and rice of preceding years, which should have ideally been shifted to consuming states before the start of next procurement season. (PTI)