Storage crisis due to record output: Thomas

Food Minister K V Thomas on Monday said the problem of foodgrain storage was due to procurement exceeding targets because of record production and encouraging purchase policy, and assured the state governments all help in providing jute bags to overcome the "problem of plenty".

In the Rajya Sabha, he proposed an all-party meeting to work out a procurement policy to avoid such a crisis in future. Thomas attributed the problem of shortage of jute bags and storage of foodgrain in Madhya Pradesh and other states to "wrong estimates made by these states about level of procurement in November 2011 which has exceeded the target substantially now."

"The trouble of storage of foodgrain has occurred due to a problem of plenty arising out of record production of foodgrain in 2011-12," Thomas said.

The production of foodgrain has jumped from 160.89 million tonnes in 2010-11 to 193.64 million tonnes in 2011-12, he said.

"For PDS, we need to procure 55 million tonnes of foodgrain, but the purchase has exceeded to 75 million tonnes this year... this has triggered a problem of storage," Thomas said.

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