Consumer ministry to ink pacts with cooperatives to set up world's largest grain storage

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Mint. The move aims to integrate godowns built at the Primary Agricultural Credit Society (PACS) level with the national food grain supply chain, providing essential market linkages for PACS. DoCA will permit NCCF to utilize its warehouses for storing various commodities like pulses, oilseeds, onions, and grains under various government schemes like the Price Support Scheme (PSS) and Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF).

The proposed collaboration between the ministry of cooperation, DoCA, NCDC, NAFED, and NCCF intends to ensure adequate storage facilities for food grains and other agricultural commodities, the official said. However, specifics regarding the amount of storage or the number of warehouses to be used remain unclear. These cooperatives, when constructing storage facilities, often utilize funds from the government's Agri Infrastructure Fund (AIF) scheme, the official added.

This initiative is part of the government's strategy to address the shortage of food grain storage capacity in the country. Launched in May last year as a pilot project in various states and union territories, this plan is touted as the largest in the world in the cooperative sector. At present, India has a grain storage capacity of about 145 million tonnes, with annual food grain output over 300 million tonnes.

Every year, the country losses of tonnes of food grains due to inadequate storage. Over the next five years, India is expected to expand storage capacity to 215 million tonnes. Queries sent to the cooperation ministry, DoCA, NABARD, NCDC and NCCF remained unanswered at press time.