Central ministries, states owe Rs 3,153 cr to FCI: Par Panel

Central ministries and state governments owe a total of Rs 3,152.87 crore to state-run Food Corporation of India (FCI) on account of foodgrains supplied under various welfare schemes.
The Parliamentary standing committee in its report has strongly recommended that the department of food "should make earnest efforts to identify the bottlenecks on realisation of dues and recover in a time-bound manner the outstanding dues from all the ministries/state governments/agencies at the earliest".
The report also pointed that the government is 'silent' as to the reasons for outstanding dues in respect of the other ministries or state governments or agencies.
"The committee note with concern that an amount of Rs 3,152.87 crore is outstanding for payment to FCI by various ministries/state governments/agencies on account of foodgrains supplied to them under various welfare schemes," the report said.

Out of the total amount, Rs 2,452 crore is due from the Rural Development Ministry and Rs 475.31 from the Human Resource Development Ministry.
The committee in its report also mentioned that it is surprised to note that the net expenditure including establishment cost of FCI is reimbursed by the government in form of food subsidy.

"The committee is of the firm opinion that meeting the total establishment cost of FCI out of food subsidy is erroneous and inappropriate. Ideally, the establishment cost should be entirely borne by FCI from out of internal resources...," the report said.
It added that FCI is supposed to function as a commercial entity and not a departmental organisation.

The committee has also urged the food department to look into this issue and advise FCI to devise other means to recoup its establishment cost.
It is observed that the total establishment cost of FCI has increased by 20.98 per cent from Rs 2265.60 crore in the year 2013-14 to Rs 2763.20 crore in the year 2015-16, the report added.