The Ministry of Agriculture along with the Ministry of Consumer Affairs has initiated measures to create additional storage capacity for foodgrain, especially in the rural sector.
The Ministry of Agriculture has recommended an enhanced subsidy for its flagship scheme, the Gramin Bhandaran Yojana (GBY), to support rural godowns, by proposing to increase the size of godowns eligible for subsidy from 10,000 tonnes to 50,000 tonnes.
GBY, a capital investment subsidy scheme for construction and renovation of rural godowns facilitates creation of scientific storage capacity to help farmers store produce, processed farm produce, agricultural inputs. The scheme also provides pledge financing, marketing credit and strengthen agricultural marketing.
Similarly, the ministry of food and consumer affairs, finalised the equity structure for the proposed special purpose vehicle (SPV) to increase foodgrain storage facilities. While the Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) and Container Corporation (CONCOR) will hold 35 per cent each in the proposed SPV, rest 30 per cent is under National Horticulture Board (NHB). SPV, to be launched soon with an initial equity of Rs 3 crore , will then call for private partnership especially for building cold storage chains which are climate controlled.
Under the Food Corporation of India (FCI) sponsored scheme to promote godowns in private partnership with 10-year guarantee, a total of 6-million-tonne capacity of storage facility has already been finalised. State warehousing corporation are in the process of finalising another 1.5 million tonnes of space.
Under the proposed private entrepreneur guarantee scheme of FCI, it would lease private godowns to store foodgrain and the target is to create storage capacity of 15 million tonnes.
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The proposed SPV would attract private investment in creation of bulk storage facilities besides playing the role of a think-tank to undertake studies on bulk storage handling and transportation requirement for foodgrain.
Besides, the Planning Commission has initiated a comprehensive study to suggest measures to create modern foodgrain storage infrastructure.
Under the eleventh plan period, GBY scheme proposes to create an additional capacity of 8 million tonnes. The flagship scheme of ministry of agriculture, the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, also helps in creating storage facilities and other market infrastructure. Currently, CWC operates 75 custom bonded warehouses with a capacity of 573,000 tonnes, four air cargo complexes, 36 container freight stations/ inland clearance depots of 1.57 million tonnes and three climate controlled warehouses for providing import and export services.