CHANDIGARH: Department of food and public distribution secretary Sudhanshu Pandey visited Haryana on Thursday to review procurement, storage operations and various welfare schemes launched by the central government. He also visited the silo facility at Solu Majra, Kaithal, food supply depot, Kurukshetra, to view its operations.
During visit to silo, the FCI general manager apprised him about the mechanised facility of two lakh metric tonne in operation since 2007. This silo is a base depot and links field depots at Navi Mumbai and Bandel. All operations, right from procurement till despatches, are carried out mechanically. The stocks are despatched from base depot to field depots through specialised wagons which are loaded from top mechanically and deliver stocks in field depot via bottom discharge without any human intervention. Pandey was informed that this silo procured 1.08 LMT wheat directly this year, which is all time high. This helps FCI save more than Rs12 crores on account of mandi labour, transportation from mandi to storage point and gunny bags among others.
Kaithal district food and supply controller Pramod Kumar said produce is allowed in the silo through computer generated tokens and farmers benefit as they save on unloading and cleaning spend.
At Kurukshetra depot, Pandey checked the quality of stored rice. The FCI general manager explained that 8,000 MT of fortified rice is despatched from Kurukshetra. Rice and wheat stocks are transported by road to Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, UP and Delhi. Pandey also met Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar to discuss various issues related to the procurement process.
