Ram Vilas Paswan inaugurates FCI depot
Source: The Sangai Express / DIPR
Imphal, September 21 2019:
Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan today inaugurated a food storage depot at Old Cachar Road, Bishnupur.
The food storage depot has a storage capacity of 4600 MT and its foundation stone was also laid by Paswan in 2015 .
Karam Shyam, CAF & PD Minister, Ravikant, Secretary (F&PD), Ministry of Food, CAF&PD; DV Prasad, Chairman & Managing Director, Food Corporation of India and Anurag Gupta, Executive Director, FCI, North East Zone shared the dais with the Union Minister at the function.
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, Ram Vilas Paswan announced that the One Nation, One Ration Card scheme would be launched across the country in June next year.
He said that the same scheme has been already introduced in 14 States after installing necessary numbers of Point of Sale (PoS) machines.
Under this scheme, beneficiaries would be authorised to buy subsidised food items from any PDS shop by producing ration cards.
There are certain difficulties and challenges in implementing the scheme in the North East region.
Certain technical works including computerisation of the entire process of purchase, storage and distribution of food items are yet to be completed, said the Union CAF&PD Minister.
However, for the State of Manipur, Chief Minister N Biren and CAF&PD Minister Karam Shyam have been working hartd on the matter, he remarked.
Appreciating the Manipur Government for doing a great job, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan thanked the FCI officials for their work and team efforts to bring a full-fledged regional office of FCI here in Imphal by January 2020.Highlighting that two godowns have been inaugurated by the Prime Minister, he said that the Government will further try to open FCI godowns in almost all the districts of the North East.
He also said that he had discussed in detail NFSA issues, drought related problems and other related matters with the General Managers, ED & Secretaries of the North Eastern States yesterday.
He said that the people of Manipur should try to get the benefits of Prime Minister's Ayushman Yojana that gives Rs 5 lakh financial assistance per family in a year.
Clarifying on the issue of black marketing of essential commodities, Minister Karam Shyam said that NFSA rice allocation is provided to the public every month through NFSA fair price agents after getting certification from local organizations and elected members' nominees.
Minister Shyam also informed that the total monthly rice allocation under NFSA for the state is 13,380.740 metric tonnes.
The number of beneficiaries is around 24,32,702 while the total number of fair price shop agents is 2,324, he added.
He also stated that necessary plots have been already identified for constructing six more new godowns in the State.
It is really very unfortunate that for the first time in the history of Manipur, the price of local rice has overshot Rs 50 per Kg, he said.
Shyam claimed that the current problem will be minimized if the State gets 10,000 metric tonnes of rice from the Ministry that is supposed to be allocated in times of natural calamities.
In his vote of thanks, Anurag Gupta announced that construction of a new godown at Churachandpur is in the pipeline and also mentioned that additional foodgrains are available under the open sales scheme in times of drought.
The Ministry of CAF& PD has advised the State Governments to accelerate the process of computerization of PDS operations and integrate the software of FCI and State Governments at the earliest to ensure end to end computerization of the process of procurement, storage and distribution of foodgrains and bring all round development to the North Eastern states.
It may be mentioned that FCI has implemented depot online system in most of the depots it owns in the North East Zone.
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