Union Minister for Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Railways & Commerce & Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal today reviewed the Storage Plan for Essential Commodities in the country.

The Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Shri Rao Saheb Patil Danve, Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs, Secretary Department of Food & Public Distribution, Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, CMD, Food Corporation of India, Managing Director, NAFED, Senior Officers from NABARD and Ministry of Food Processing Industry also attended this review meeting.

While reviewing, the Minister Shri Piyush Goyal said that the Nation needs a single, technologically modern storage management infrastructure. He said that we must think in terms of Convergence and aggregation of all storage infrastructure in the country. Shri Goyal said that “whole of the Government approach" is needed rather stand-alone departmental storage plans. He said for this land aggregation for storage from States, Government Undertakings may be explored. Shri Goyal further advised all to have more synergy between the effective utilisation of Agriculture Infrastructure Fund and creation of modern storage infrastructure.

He further added Location specific master plans and schemes and environment should be created for boosting Public private partnerships, Investment, initiatives, enterprises. Shri Goyal said master plan for land and storage should be prepared so that optimisation of space and use may be achieved.

 Shri Goyal said that the modern, cost efficient storage infrastructure at grass roots level and at block level is great way to increase farmers income.

In India, warehouses are spread over different undertakings and authorities at 20,433 locations. They Include Railway Goodsheds-7400, PMC Principal & sub-marketyard- 7320, Fci-545, CWC-422, SWC’s 2245, NSC, NAFED, NCCF-73, CONCOR-60+, cooperatives- 2000+, Warehouses with State Govt. HAFED-100+, Highway Logistics Park (under process) -35, Inland Waterways Complex-8, Ports-200+ Airports(cargo)-25, where warehousing infrastructure of required type & size can be developed, upgraded or modified converted for safe storage of essential commodities. He informed that EOI has been called for development of Cold chain facility for perishable commodities, including onions through Private Entity.

It may be noted that CWC/SWCs are having presence at about 2668 locations, in Tier-I to Tier-V cities. These are most suitable for development of warehouses, in consumption as well as production area, being in prime area & outskirt of the cities.

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DJN/MS