CG wants food grain storage capacity up to 50 lakh tonne

Seeks Central help in developing food hub in state

Raipur, February 09, 29012

Chhattisgarh government has demanded from Centre to help increasing its food grain storage capacity up to 50 lakh tonne. “Presently, the buffer stock of the country’s food grains is in north India. Considering factors like natural calamities, security reasons, better food grain management and rail transportation, the buffer stock should be shifted to Central India. This can be done by developing a food hub in Central India and Chhattisgarh is the most suitable state for the purpose as transportation of food grains from this region to any party of the country would be quick, convenient and economical,” said state Food Minister Punnulal Mohle and Agriculture Minister Chandrashekhar Sahu during conference of Food and Agriculture ministers of the states at Vigyan Bhawan New Delhi on Thursday.

“Currently the state godowns have limited storage capacity hence it is difficult to protect food grains for long time. If the Centre will take initiative, Chhattisgarh can keep the food grains secure at least for three years,” the duo said.

They informed that the Central pool gets highest contribution of rice from Chhattisgarh. “Still, if we lack adequate storage capacity for food grains then the Centre should consider our request,” they added.

They sought adoption of Punjab format in the Chhattisgarh to upgrade storage capacity of the godowns with the help of private sector.

The duo proposed to keep 75% of the scheduled areas and 70% of the non-scheduled areas in priority grade under Food Security Law so that maximum poor could get benefited by it.

They said the Centre should implement suggestions given by Chhattisgarh government regarding development of farmers and poor when it had termed state PDS as prototype.