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Piyush Goyal suggests 5-point reform agenda for FCI

Other News 16 January 2022 02:41 (UTC +04:00)
Piyush Goyal suggests 5-point reform agenda for FCI

Suggesting a five-point reform agenda for the Food Corporation of India, Union Food Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday said that the FCI’s public perception needs to be changed from “being inefficient & corrupt to dynamic, inclusive & honest,” Trend reports citing The Indian Express.

Goyal made these remarks on the occasion of the 58th Foundation Day of the FCI. According to an official statement, Goyal gave “5 Sutras” to improve FCI’s progress.

“1. Change the public perception of FCI from being inefficient & corrupt to dynamic, inclusive & honest. 2. Focus on integrating end-to-end tech solutions right from procurement to delivery to achieve operational efficiency & leakage free, distribution — reduce PDS response time, beneficiary tracking etc. 3. Establish a grievance redressal mechanism to react rapidly to farmer/Farmer Producer Organisation in distress. Reaching out to farmers through “Jan Jagrukta” programmes at grass-root level to spread awareness. 4. Plan for modern infrastructure & logistics. Upgrade warehouses to international standards. Improve storage capacity for the growing need – Power backup, CCTV, robust network facility. 5. Global best practices to make India a ‘Food hub’,” the statement said quoting Goyal.

Goyal also emphasized on the need for improvement in India’s rank on the Global Hunger Index.

Goyal said that food security is not enough and the focus should be on “Nutritional Security”.

Highlighting the journey of the FCI, Goyal said that today, the FCI procures nearly 1,300 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of wheat & paddy annually against nearly 13 LMT procured during 1965. He said that the distribution across the country has also increased from about 18 LMT in 1965 to nearly 600 LMT. Even the storage capacity from 6 LMT in 1965 has increased to over 800 LMT now, he added.

On this occasion, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State for Food, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, MoS, Food, Sudhanshu Pandey, secretary (Food) and Atish Chandra, CMD, FCI were also present.

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