FCI ensures uninterrupted food grain supplies across the country during the lockdown due to COVID-19 outbreak

58 rail rakes loaded today, total 410 rakes moved carrying about 11.48 LMT food grains since lockdown began on 24th March

Food Corporation of India (FCI) is ensuring uninterrupted supply of wheat and rice throughout the country during the lockdown period. FCI is fully prepared to meet not only the food grain requirement under National Food Security Act (NFSA) @5 KG/Month/Beneficiary but also any additional demand including supply of 5Kg/Person for next 3 months to 81.35 Crore people under PM Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana. As on 01.04.2020, FCI has 56.4 Million Metric Tonnes (MMT) of Food Grains (30.54 MMT Rice and 25.86 MMT Wheat).

Even in this challenging operational environment, FCI is able to meet the increasing demand of food grains by gearing up the pace of supply of wheat and rice throughout the country mostly by Rail. A total of 58 Rakes are being loaded today i.e. 02.04.2020 carrying about 1.62 Lakh Metric Tonnes (LMT) food grain stock. Since the day of lockdown i.e. 24.03.2020 FCI has moved 410 rakes carrying an approximate quantity of 11.48 LMT.

FCI is conducting e-auctions under Open Market Sales Scheme (OMSS) for providing Wheat to the empanelled Roller Flour Mills/State Government to ease the supply constraint in the market. In the last e-auction held on 31.03.2020, bids for 1.44 LMT wheat have been received.

In view of outbreak of COVID-19, apart from regular e-auction, District Magistrates/Collectors have been authorized to lift directly from FCI depots at OMSS reserve price to cater to the needs of Roller Flour Mills and other wheat product manufactures. Till now, 96736 MT Wheat has been allotted in the following states through this route:

Sr. No.	State	Quantity (in MT)
i	Uttar Pradesh	35675
ii	Bihar	23880
iii	Punjab	18344
iv	Himachal Pradesh	11500
v	Haryana	4700
vi	Goa	1100
vii	Uttarakhand	813
viii	Rajasthan	684
ix	Chhattisgarh	40

Further, e-auction for rice is also conducted. In the last e-auction on 31.03.2020, bids for 77000 MT rice have been received from the state of Telangana, Tamil Nadu, J&K etc.

In addition, considering the emergent situation, States have been allowed to take rice under OMSS @ Rs. 22.50/kg without participating in E-auction to meet any requirement over and above the NFSA allotment and additional allocation done under PM Garib Kalyan Yojana Allocation. So far, 93387 Metric Tonnes (MT) Rice has been allotted to the following 6 states as per their requests:

Sr. No.	State	Quantity (in MT)
i	Telangana	50000
ii	Assam	16160
iii	Meghalaya	11727
iv	Manipur	10000
v	Goa	4500
vi	Arunachal Pradesh	1000

Courtesy: pib.gov.in