Thomas urges states to lift grain for public distribution

To expedite disposal of the Centre’s excess grain stock, Food Minister K V Thomas has written to all state chief ministers to ensure full lifting of the allocation for the Public Distribution System (PDS), and to ensure these reach the targeted beneficiaries.

He also said the Centre expects to bear a food subsidy of Rs 91,213 crore in 2012-2013, almost 22 per cent more than the Budget estimate of Rs 75,000 crore because of the extra allocation to states.

Thomas’ letter also says states should strive to make the Fair Price Shops (ration shops) viable by increasing the owners’ margin and allowing sale of non-PDS items for daily use.

PDS ALLOCATION Stocks in Central pool as on October 1, 2012 (In million tonnes)
	Wheat	Rice	Total
Actual stocks	43.1	23.3	66.4
Buffer+strategic stocks	14.0	7.2	21.2
Source: Food Corporation of India

As on October 1, the government had a little over 66 million tonnes of foodgrain in its warehouses — 43.1 mt of wheat and 23.3 mt of rice. This is more than double the norm requirement for buffer stocks and strategic reserves.

The latter requirements call for a minimum wheat inventory of 14 mt and 7.2 mt of rice.

Also, the available storage with both state governments and the Food Corporation of India is 68 mt. This is just about adequate now but won’t be when rice procurement gets going. The government has targeted purchase of 40 mt of rice from farmers in 2012-13, almost five mt more than the 2011-12 procurement.

Thomas’ letter says the government has allocated 6.76 mt of extra grain to states for distribution, over and above the usual allocation of almost 50 mt.

The government supplies subsidised food through the PDS to a little over 60 million families below the poverty line and to another 110 million families above the poverty line, through the network of almost 500,000 ration shops.