By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, JAN 22, 2022: THE Government, with its Digital India Programme initiative, has emphasized that computerization is the fuel for growth and helps the public machinery to efficiently and uniformly spread the outreach of various schemes run by the Government. The Department of F&PD strives to tap the benefits of automation in its various endeavours, especially following the principal that every ounce of foodgrains saved through scientific storage techniques should be considered as grain produced.

The Department of Food and Public Distribution under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution with its principal agency, FCI, has developed a roadmap to roll out Online Storage Management (OSM) in the country. The OSM envisages putting in place a single source of information for the food grains stored in the country for central pool through integrating State portals with the central portal.

The OSM will develop an ecosystem of storage management applications across the DCP States, each being capable of capturing the Minimum Storage Specifications (MSS).  These MSSs, which have been identified through intense and elaborate discussions with the concerned States and FCI are: capability to compute storage capacity, depict storage point-wise stock position (crop year-wise break up of stocks held, depiction of OB, issues and CB), stack-wise, truck-wise linkage (stack wise details of stock position, truck wise information), quality parameters (infestation details, treatment details). This would help in route optimization for distribution as well.

In a meeting held on 21 st Jan'22, under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Food), Govt. of India and attended by Food Secretaries of all DCP States, FCI made a presentation on the progress in the initiative. During the presentation, it was emphasized that the States shall build their respective portals in a collaborative mode, to ensure that the best practices can be imbibed and disseminated among the States.

In the meeting, the sixteen (16) States (viz. Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand and West Bengal) have reassured of their commitment to develop/implement storage management applications with MSSs and integrate them with the central portal.

This exercise, expected to be completed by Mar'22, will improve efficiency and transparency in stocking, storage, movement and distribution of foodgrains. It will help in driving down costs of food storage and distribution by checking leakages in the entire process. It will also enable the Government with readily available information for both monitoring and fast-paced decision making to benefit the stakeholders, especially PDS consumer whose welfare is the priority of the government.