New Delhi, NFAPost: Union Minister for Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Railways & Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal reviewed the storage plan for essential commodities in the country and made it clear that India needs a single, technologically modern storage management infrastructure.
The minister was speaking at a review meeting attended by Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, 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.
“We must think in terms of Convergence and aggregation of all storage infrastructure in the country. It requires a “Whole of the Government approach” rather than stand-alone departmental storage plans,” said Piyush Goyal.
He said for this land aggregation for storage from states, government undertakings may be explored. Piyush Goyal further advised all to have more synergy between the effective utilisation of the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund and the creation of modern storage infrastructure.
Piyush Goyal further added location-specific master plans and schemes and environment should be created for boosting public-private partnerships, investments, initiatives, enterprises.
“Master plan for land and storage should be prepared so that optimisation of space and use may be achieved. The modern, cost efficient storage infrastructure at grass root level and at the block level is a great way to increase farmers income,” said Piyush Goyal.
In India, warehouses are spread over different undertakings and authorities at 20,433 locations. They Include Railway Goodsheds-7400, PMC Principal & sub-market yard- 7320, Fci-545, CWC-422, SWC’s 2245, NSC, NAFED, NCCF-73, CONCOR-60+ and cooperatives- 2000+.
Also, there are 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 &and size can be developed, upgraded, or modified converted for safe storage of essential commodities.
He informed that EOI has been called for the development of cold chain facility for perishable commodities, including onions through private entity.
It may be noted that CWC/SWCs are having a 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.
