Centre taking vital steps on food security in people's interest: Union MoS

Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare Shobha Karandlaje on Thursday shed light on the steps undertaken by the Centre government towards food security.

"The whole world is talking about food security today and after Covid-19, people started thinking about food security because we have faced many problems with Covid. Now the Indian government is doing a lot of work for food security. In the last 20 months, we have spent Rs one lakh 80 thousand crores under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY). We have given rice and wheat for free, apart from this the public distribution system is running in our country," Union Minister Karandlaje said.

The central government buys 1 kilo of rice for Rs 36 and gives it to the state for Rs three. 1 kg of rice has a subsidy of Rs 33. The central government is paying for it. The wheat purchased for Rs 26 is given to the States for Rs two. The central government gives Rs 24 as subsidies. For this, we spend Rs one lakh 60 thousand crores. Every year such a big system has been set up by the central government," she added.

Rightly stressing the upgradation of the Food Corporation of India's godowns, the Union Minister said that the wastage of food in the godowns has been reduced to below 1 percent.

"Earlier we had heard that there is a lot of loss in FCI godowns due to mice, now we have upgraded our FCI godowns scientifically, making the wastage drop below 1 percent. This is one of the biggest achievements that the central government has done in the last five to six years," she said.

"We have given a lot of grains, rice, and wheat to our people. For food security purposes, in India, we are producing more and more grains, serials, vegetables, whatever we eat, now we have become a food surplus country," Union Minister added.

Shobha Karandlaje also took note of doubling the farmers' income and said that the government is keen on that. "To double the income of the farmers, we have to create a market, we have to help startups, we have to help food processing, and because of this we can take our food production to the whole world," she said, adding that we will celebrate International Millet Year in the coming year.

Pointing to India celebrating the International Millet Year in 2023 Union Minister Karandlaje said, "Our Food and Civil Supplies Department and Agriculture Department are together working in synergy. We are taking our millet production to the whole world. We will showcase all over the world, that we are eating healthy and you (the world) should also follow that.