Target is to ensure not a single grain of food gets wasted and all of it is procured by government at Minimum Support Price to benefit farmers: Paswan
New Delhi: The Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan today asserted that the main objective of the Ministry is to ensure that not a single grain of food being produced by the hard work and labour of farmers gets wasted and all of it is procured by the government at Minimum Support Price while ensuring that corruption is completely removed. Shri Ram Vilas Paswan stated this at a press conference charting out the future roadmap for the Food Corporation of India (FCI).
Union Minister Shri Ram Vilas Paswan stated that primacy will be given to ensuring that the functioning of FCI is streamlined and fast paced as per recommendations of the Shanta Kumar Committee. Shri Paswan said that plan is to create 100 lakh ton silo storage capacity in the country. Previous government had constructed 6.75 lakh ton storage capacity while work is ongoing for 22 lakh ton storage capacity. Shri Paswan stated that the reason for slow progress in construction of silos is mainly due to the necessity of having 1.5km rail siding next to the silos. Now RITES has been assigned the task of changing the silo model and they will give their recommendations in 90 days to FCI. The target for completion of remaining silos is 2021 so that the wheat procured in March 2022 can be stored in these silos.
Shri Paswan emphasised that the procurement of wheat and rice will continue as before so that the farmers continue to get the benefit of MSP being set by the government. 338 lakh ton of wheat has been procured in the recently concluded Rabi season procurement while in 2018-19 423 lakh ton of Rice has been procured out of which 341 lakh ton rice has reached FCI.
Shri Ram Vilas Paswan further stated that direct recruitment process of FCI is being made more transparent through online examination which is being done in two phases. While first phase has already been completed on 3rd June, second phase will be completed by the second week of July. Similarly, recruitment of 77 posts of category 1 and 367 posts of category 2 will begin in July.
Talking about the 3 types of labourers in FCI namely Departmental, Daily Payment System (DPS) and No work no pay workers along with contractual labour, Union Minister Shri Paswan asserted that a big decision is being deliberated upon by the government to finish the 3 different arrangements and bring all workers of FCI under a single, uniform system which will bring stability of tenure and secured wages for all. A consensus in this regard is being formulated with all the different employee unions, 50% of whom are already on board.
Union Minister Shri Ram Vilas Paswan further said that in order to improve the usage of Information Technology in FCI, a Human Resource Management System (HRMS) will be implemented, the work for which will begin in August, 2019 and will be completed by August 2020. This move will benefit 22,000 employees in 196 offices of FCI.
Shri Paswan also stated that integration work for depot online of FCI and CWC will be done in consultation with State governments and meetings will be held with the Food Ministers and Secretaries of State government in July to set the targets for integration.
