Food Corporation to supply grain to Tripura via barges through Bangladesh

For the first time in its history, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) will attempt to use the river route between India and Bangladesh to transport foodgrain from Kolkata to Tripura in the northeast, in the next couple of months.

According to FCI chairman Amar Singh, the grain would be transported through river from West Bengal to Ashuganj river port in Bangladesh and from there to Tripura in trucks. “Tripura faces a shortage of foodgrain and because of its difficult location, it takes time to transport gains from Bengal. Hence, we have entered into an agreement with the Bangladesh government to use their Ashuganj river port for swift and safe transportation,” he said.

The grain will be moved across the Ganga and Padma rivers in barges. “One barge can carry 1,000-2,000 tonnes of grain and takes less time than conventional trucks,” another official said.

WATER WAY

• River route to transport foodgrain between India and Bangladesh to be used for the first time
   
• First trans-border foodgrain movement to start in next few months
   
• FCI hopes to store all grains in covered compounds in next two years
   
• Global tenders for building 2-million-tonne modern silos to be issued soon

Overall, across the country, FCI has managed in the past four months to move around 80 per cent of wheat stocks in the open to safer places. Around 7.8 million tonnes of foodgrain, mainly wheat, were kept in “unreliable places” as on June 1 and almost 6.8 mt had been shifted to safer places till September, a daily average of 375,000 tonnes. In the coming days, the remaining stock would be also shifted.

FCI and state agencies procured 38.1 mt of wheat from farmers this year, about 35 per cent more than in 2011-12. Officials said as on October 1, the Corporation had 71 mt of storage space with it, including those it had hired and including space owned by state governments.

The government is aiming to add an extra 18 mt of storage space through the Private Entrepreneurs Guarantee (PEG) scheme. “We feel once this entire capacity under PEG comes into use, our covered storage capacity will go up from the existing 53 mt to over 70 mt,” Singh said.

Apart from these, tenders for constructing another two mt of modern silos would be floated in the next three-odd months and theses would come into operation in about three years. “Silos are much bigger than the warehouses and have all modern storage facilities, including railway sidings,” Singh said.