Manish Tewari lays stress on hassle-free procurement at FCI meet

Manish Tewari, MP and former Union minister, chaired a meeting of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) Advisory Committee in Chandigarh. The meeting was attended by officers of the FCI. The general manager of Punjab region, B Srinivasan, gave an in-depth presentation about the procurement operations being carried out in the state and Chandigarh with regard to both paddy and wheat.

Tewari impressed upon the assembled officers that the procurement of paddy in Punjab and Chandigarh should be absolutely hassle-free and seamless. Payments to the farmers must be made in time, as well as adequate steps must be taken to ensure that the paddy procured and milled was moved as expeditiously as possible out of the state in order to create adequate capacity for more incoming crop. He said that the godowns and the sheds of the rice millers should not be congested. Tewari further emphasised that the foodgrains being provided to the people under the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Yojana, National Food Security Act and Public Procurement Programme were of quality appropriate and fit for human consumption.

He, however, expressed satisfaction that most of the wheat procured from Punjab and Chandigarh had been lifted fairly rapidly by the FCI. He promised to take up with the Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs as well the apex management of the FCI that enough rakes must be provided at all railheads in Punjab and Chandigarh in order to ensure that there was speedy and expeditious movement, disposal and dissemination of the procured foodgrains.