FCI to transport grains within India via Bangladesh

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

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

The grains will be moved across the Ganges and Padma rives in barges. “One barge can carry around 1,000-2,000 tonnes of grains and moreover takes less time than the conventional trucks,” another official said. Overall, across the country, the FCI has managed to move around 81 per cent of wheat stocks which were kept in open in just four months in what was one of the biggest movement of grain stocks across the country.

From around 7.8 million tonnes of foodgrains mainly wheat kept in unreliable places as one June 1 this year, almost 6.8 million tonnes have been shifted to safer places till September. “Per day FCI transported around 375,000 tonnes of wheat across the length and breadth of the country,” Singh said.

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In the coming days, the remaining stocks would also be shifted in safe places. In June, of the additional more than 10 million tonnes of wheat procured in 2012-2013, almost 7 million tonnes was lying in unsafe places. The Corporation, which is India’s nodal agency for storage, procurement and distribution of foodgrains plans to bring down its manual operations by 80 per cent in next few years.

FCI and state agencies procured around 38.14 million tonnes of wheat from farmers this year, which is 35 per cent more than 2011-2012. Officials said as on October 1, the Corporation has around 71 million tonnes of storage space available with it, which includes Covered Area Plinth (CAP), those hired by the Corporation and also owned by state governments.

Going forward, the government is adding an extra 18 million tonnes 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 million tonnes to over 70 million tonnes, which would also mean that little amount of grain would be required to be stored in uncovered areas,” Singh said.

He said that apart from that the tenders for constructing 2 million tonnes modern silos would be floated in the next 2-3 months and the silos would come into operation in next 2-3 years. “Silos are much bigger than the warehouses and have all modern storage facilities including railway sidings,” Singh said.