98 pc ‘damaged’ wheat rotted due to poor storage

According to norms,storage is termed unscientific when the covered area plinths (CAP),where grains are stacked,do not conform to the norms of proper height of platform,which is two-and-a-half inches above the ground,proper drainage and a boundary wall. It should also not be a low-lying area.

The entire 53,000 tonnes of wheat declared non-issuable for public distribution system in Punjab since 2008 was in the custody of five state procurement agencies — they procure and store nearly 85 per cent of Punjab’s total wheat procurement for central pool. Punjab Agro tops the list,followed by Punsup and Pungrain — the three agencies procure higher quantum without the requisite storage space.

At many of the sites selected by state agencies in Bathinda,Fatehgarh Sahib,Patiala and Ludhiana districts,which have reported damage in the last three years,wheat was simply stacked in marketing yards or low-lying fields.

Though some ‘good’ stocks can be retrieved out of the quantity declared non-issuable by the Food Corporation of India before dispatch — stocks fit for human consumption are segregated from the ones that cannot be upgraded for the country’s public distribution system — proper site selection is now the guiding criteria for creation of covered and open storage for the FCI.

“A joint team of the food and civil supply department and Punjab FCI is visiting all sites offered by bidders for the 51 lakh tonnes of covered storage space to be created under the new warehousing scheme in the state. We are also planning to make site approval mandatory for wheat stocks to be stored in the open from the 2011 Rabi season,” said a senior FCI official.

Meanwhile,faced with the challenge of handling nearly 600 lakh tonnes of foodgrains — almost 2.5 times the buffer norms — the FCI has gone online since mid-August. Its regional centres have started uploading their countrywide stock position of wheat and rice to ensure priority movement of vulnerable and longer-duration stored stocks.

While the stocks of FCI will be tracked daily,that in custody of state agencies will be done on a monthly basis. The maximum time lag permissible in case of FCI stocks for uploading information on stock position after dispatch would not be more than two days. The online tracking will help identify and liquidate stocks stacked at ‘vulnerable’ sites that need priority movement. The food and civil supply department,too,is creating a repository of information to begin online tracking of stocks.

As part of the initiative,damaged stocks are being identified and segregated and the stock position will then be uploaded by respective centres according to the duration of storage.