Food and Civil Supplies (INDIA 2018)
Before each Rabi/Kharif crop season, central government announces the Minimum Support Prices (MSP), based on the recommendations of Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), which takes into consideration the cost of various agricultural inputs and the reasonable margin for the farmers for their produce.
The stock of foodgrains (rice and wheat) in the Central Pool as in July, 2017 was 533 lakh tonnes (210 lakh tonnes of rice and 322 lakh tonnes of wheat).
National Food Security
- In order to further strengthen the commitment to food security of the people, Government of India enacted the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA), which come into force from 2013.
- The Act aims to provide for food and nutritional security in human life cycle approach, by ensuring access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices to people to live a life with dignity. The Act marks a paradigm shift in approach to food security— from welfare to a rights based one.
- The Act provides for coverage of upto 75 per cent of the rural population and upto 50 per cent of the urban population for receiving subsidized foodgrains under Targeted Public Distribution System, thus covering about two-thirds of the population.
- This coverage for receiving highly subsidized foodgrains is under two categories—households covered under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and the remaining households as priority households.
- AAY was launched in 2000 to provide focus on food security of the poorest of the poor, and covers 2.5 crore households. Such households are entitled under the Act to receive 35 kg. of foodgrains per households per month, @ ₹ 1/2/3 per kg. for coarse grains/wheat/rice.
- Priority households are entitled to receive 5 kg. of foodgrains per person per month at the above mentioned highly subsidized prices.
- The Act also contains provisions for setting up of grievance redressal mechanism at the district and state levels. Separate provisions have also been made for ensuring transparency and accountability
The Mid Day Meal Scheme is implemented by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The scheme covers students of primary and upper primary classes in the government schools/schools aided by government and the schools run by local bodies. Foodgrains are supplied free of cost @ 100 grams for primary stage and @ 150 grams for upper primary stage per child per school day where cooked/processed hot meal is being served or 3 kgs per student per month where raw foodgrains are distributed.
The SABLA scheme was launched in 2010 by merging two schemes namely, Nutrition Programme and Adolescent Girls (NPAG) and Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY) into a single scheme. The scheme aims at empowering adolescent girls of 11-18 years by improvement of their nutritional and health status and upgrading various skills useful to them. It also aims at equipping the girls on family welfare, health hygiene, etc. and guiding them on existing public services. The requirement of foodgrains under the scheme for nutrition is @ 100 grams of grains per beneficiary per day for 300 days in a year.
Annapurna Scheme is implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development. Indigent senior citizens of 65 years of age or above who are not getting pension under the National Old Age Pension Scheme (NOAPS), are provided 10 kgs. of foodgrains per person per month free of cost under the scheme.
In addition to maintaining buffer stocks and for meeting the requirement of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) and Other Welfare Schemes (OWS), the FCI sells excess stocks of wheat and rice from the Central Pool at predetermined prices in the open market from time to time under Open Market Sale Scheme (Domestic) through e-tender to enhance the supply especially during the lean season especially in the deficit regions.
FCI has its own grid of covered godowns in all states to safely stock the central pool foodgrains. In addition, it hires capacity from Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) and state agencies like State Warehousing Corporations as well as private parties.
In order to cope with increasing production and procurement of foodgrains, the Government is implementing Private Entrepreneurs Guarantee (PEG) scheme for augmenting the covered storage capacity in the country. Under the PEG scheme, which was launched in 2008, godowns are constructed in PPP mode and the land and construction cost is borne by the selected partners. FCI on its part guarantees 10 year usage of storage capacities to the private investors and 9 years to CWC and SWCs. Locations for construction of godown are identified by the FCI on the basis of recommendations of state level committees to cover the gaps in storage.
India is the largest consumer and the second largest producer of sugar in the world.
Under the FRP system, the farmers are not required to wait till the end of the season or for any announcement of the profits by sugar mills or the government. The new system also assures margins on account of profit and risk to farmers, irrespective of the fact whether sugar mills generate profit or not and is not dependent on the performance of any individual sugar mill.
Ethanol is an agro-based product, mainly produced from a by-product of the sugar industry, namely molasses. In years of surplus production of sugarcane, when prices are depressed, the sugar industry is unable to make timely payment of cane price to farmers. The Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme (EBP) seeks to achieve blending of Ethanol with motor spirit with a view to reducing pollution, conserve foreign exchange and increase value addition in the sugar industry enabling them to clear cane price arrears of farmers. The central government has scaled up blending targets from 5 to 10 per cent under the EBP.
Food processing sector has been identified as one of the priority sector under ‘Make in India’. With a view to attract investment to this sector, Ministry of Food Processing Industries has been implementing schemes for development of infrastructure for promoting food processing industries. Mega food parks with common utility like road, electricity, water supply, sewage facility and common processing facility like pulping, packaging, cold storage, dry storage and logistics are being promoted in areas with strong agricultural resource base.
Government of India approved a new Central Sector Scheme – Kisan Sampada Yojana – (Scheme for Agro-Marine Processing and Development of Agro-Processing Clusters) in May, 2017 with an outlay of ₹ 6,000 crore for the period 2016-20 coterminous with the 14th Finance Commission cycle. It is a comprehensive package which will result in creation of modern infrastructure with efficient supply chain management from farm gate to retail outlet. It will not only provide a big boost to the growth of food processing sector in the country but also help in providing better prices to farmers and is a big step towards doubling of farmers income, creating huge employment opportunities especially in the rural areas, reducing wastage of agricultural produce, increasing the processing level and enhancing the export of the processed foods.
