The government’s decision to make big improvements in the grain storage capacity is welcome, as a good part of the food grains harvested in the country has been going waste for various reasons. The Union cabinet has approved a new programme worth Rs 1 lakh crore to augment the country’s grain storage capacity from the current 145 million tonnes to 215 million tonnes. When completed, it will be the “world’s largest grain storage plan”. The plan is to build storage facilities in every block, which will have a capacity of between 500-2,000 tonnes. There will be a pilot project in 10 districts before the programme is scaled up. The entire plan will be overseen by an inter-ministerial team. The government has said that it will address the shortage of grain storage facilities, create decentralised storage capacity, prevent food wastage, and generate employment.
If the programme is successfully implemented, it will mean a major leap for the country’s agricultural economy. Setting up modern storage facilities at the block level through Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) will help farmers to get a fair price for their produce and for a larger portion of it than currently. At present, the country’s storage capacity is less than half of its grain production of over 320 million tonnes. As the godowns are unable to store more food grains, a good part of the produce is exposed to pest attacks and inclement weather. The government told the Lok Sabha in December last year that post-harvest losses were in the range of 4-6 per cent for cereals and 5-8 per cent for pulses. It is estimated that this amounts to Rs 50,000 crore, or about 1 per cent of the GDP. The country cannot afford such large wastage when millions of people go hungry every day. Inadequate storage facilities also force farmers to resort to distress sale of their produce. There will be considerable savings in other ways, too, as the programme will help to reduce the cost of food transportation to the Food Corporation of India’s (FCI) procurement centres and from warehouses to fair price shops. It is also necessary to ensure that there is no wastage of grains when climate change is feared to pose a challenge to food production in the coming years.
According to the plan, the credit societies will be enabled to diversify their activities. They will also function as procurement centres for State agencies or the FCI and as fair price shops for farmers. Steps will also be taken to computerise them and to make them more efficient. Financial allocations have been made for this. But a large number of PACS in the country are dysfunctional and they need to be revived first.