{"id":59751,"date":"2020-05-06T22:54:22","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T17:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=59751"},"modified":"2020-12-26T16:53:04","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T11:23:04","slug":"why-fci-is-called-food-corruption-of-india-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/why-fci-is-called-food-corruption-of-india-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"Why FCI is not JUST Food Corruption of India? Explained."},"content":{"rendered":"

The Food Corporation of India was established in 1964, at a time when India was still<\/em> suffering from food grain shortage.<\/p>\n

When the green revolution started, it was expected that country would no longer depend on foreign imports for food grains, and our farmers would produce to feed the whole country.<\/p>\n

But who will manage and store the vast amounts of food grains produced?<\/p>\n

It was then that the FCI was conceived as the premier agency<\/em> to manage the procurement<\/em> and stocking of rice and wheat – the two key<\/em> outputs of green revolution.<\/p>\n

4 Things wrong with FCI<\/h3>\n

The FCI has been criticised on four primary grounds<\/strong> in the past.<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>, that is operationally expensive, inefficient and corrupt.<\/p>\n

Secondly<\/strong>, it has been criticised by the even the Supreme Court as having poor storage facilities, which is affected by loss caused by pests and rats.<\/p>\n

Thirdly<\/strong>, there is also the problem of “human rat”. Whenever food grains have been found siphoned off from FCI godowns, it was said that “rats” ate away all the food grains.<\/p>\n

It is for this<\/em> reason, that a former Chairman of FCI , in the 1990s called it the “Food Corruption of India<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

Fourthly, its complete lack of pro-active liquidation policy. Despite having (a) vast buffers of food-grains, and (b) no place to store them, FCI is not seen keen on releasing the stock in Open Market or through export.<\/p>\n

FCI has some achievements too<\/h3>\n

The FCI is not without achievements.<\/p>\n

Firstly, the entire Food Security Act depends on the robust set of FCI to reach food-grains to the poor. Thus it has served as a lifeline to starving people.<\/p>\n

Secondly, in the Covid-19 scenario, given its vast reach and operations, it is uniquely positioned to cater to grain procurement & moving them.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, the criticism that subsiding food – a basic good – through running an agency like FCI which is inefficient, slow, huge, and corrupt is also not very valid. This is because 60% of the cost of acquisition, procurement and distribution are transfers to the farmers.<\/p>\n

5 Suggestions for Reforms in FCI<\/h3>\n

One,<\/strong> It is currently heavily reliant on rail, and only 24% of the grain moved by it is by roads. but road transport has much wider reach – deeper into India’s rural areas. Also, road transport is better for meeting emergencies.<\/p>\n

Two<\/strong>, it must follow the pre-positioning shipment policy to hotspots. This means that for chronically starved areas, food grains could be stored nearer to the target population.<\/p>\n

For example, in Covid – 19 times, storing food grains in block and panchayats, will provide a sense of assurance and psychological comfort to people. When we have physical proximity to sufficient food, we already win half the battle against food insecurity.<\/p>\n

Three,<\/strong> the FCI currently follows the FIFO principle – first in- first out. This means that older grains stored for long will be released first. There are two problems with this.<\/p>\n

First, often food grains stored for long may not be as fit to consume as the latest produce. But the FIFO principle ensures that all food grains must have undergone a certain period of storage – whose hygienic and protection from infestation cannot be assured\u00a0 – before it is released.<\/p>\n

And second, it slows down the movement of good grains, as the grains quickly available is not moved, but the one that is in storage for long is moved first – which takes time.<\/p>\n

Four<\/strong>, Given its vast infrastructure, reach and network, it can extend its functions to help farmer producer organisations in the procurement of seeds, fertilisers, packaging material etc.<\/p>\n

Five<\/strong>, The FCI has to be re-imagined on the lines of the Shanta Kumar Committee Report – in designating it as an “Agency for Innovation in Food Management Systems.”.<\/p>\n

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The Food Corporation of India is often called as food corruption of India. But why?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":3350,"cached_at":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}