Downtrend In Grain Despatch From N India
Despatch of foodgrain from north India has shown a declining trend in April. The cabinet committee on prices, in a special meeting held on March 18 to discuss the despatch of foodgrain in April, had asked the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to load at least 22 rakes every day from north India. At least eight of these rakes, it was decided, would be headed towards the southern states.
However, the actual despatch was 15.7 rakes a day on an average. The southern states were allocated only 6.5 rakes while one was booked for the North-East.
The FCI and the railways are blaming each other for the shortfall in foodgrain movement. The performance was in sharp contrast with the rate of loading and despatch of foodgrain in January. Loading of foodgrain from north India amounted to 27.3 rakes on an average by FCI and another 1.1 rakes by private parties totalling an impressive 28.4 rakes a day.
The performance was slightly lower in February when the total loading was 25.9 rakes, 24.3 by FCI and 1.6 by private parties. The loading deteriorated further in March to reach 19.5 rakes.
On a number of days FCI failed to offer any indent for rakes while its unloading performance was also poor. Loading for southern destinations had to be regulated due to poor unloading. The situation aggravated further due to congestion caused by imported wheat and suspension of unloading on all Sundays in Kerala. Loading of foodgrain from the north to the south was 7.2 rakes a day on an average in December, 1996 followed by seven rakes in January, 6.1 rakes in February and seven rakes in March this year.
Sunday unloading stopped in Kerala from February after the unloading workers became departmental staff. The change in the workers employment status requires FCI to pay overtime for work on Sundays.
FCI, therefore, considers it cheaper to pay demurrage charges for the idled food rakes than pay overtime to its workers. This has played havoc with the movement of food rakes in the south. The number of detained wagons in Kerala has gone up by 50 per cent due to the forced idling of rakes on Sundays. This has also forced the railways to regulate loading for the southern states.
The railways carried a record 1.95 lakh tonnes of foodgrain to the north-east during last December. The figure fell to 1.78 lakh tonnes in January, 1.75 lakh tonnes in February and 1.69 lakh tonnes in March, 1997. Foodgrain stocks with FCI in the north-east now stands at 2.5 lakh tonnes.
The 1996-97 loading of foodgrain in the country was 30.12 million tonnes which was a steady improvement over 24.9 million tonnes in 1995-96 and 20.73 million tonnes in 1994-95. However, the sharp drop in the loading in the very first month of 1997-98 is a cause of concern.