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Informist, Tuesday, May 20, 2025

--Food minister: To allocate FCI around INR 10 bln for upgrading godowns

--CONTEXT: Food Minister Joshi speaking at an event 

--Food minister: To give Central Warehousing INR 2.8 bln to upgrade godowns

NEW DELHI – The government will allocate INR 10.00 billion to the Food Corp. of India and INR 2.80 billion to the Central Warehousing Corp. to upgrade their godowns to global standards, Food Minister Pralhad Joshi said. The funds will be used to address infrastructure gaps in storage units and promote the integration of advanced technology to digitise operations, efficiency and accountability, he said.

The minister was speaking at the launch of Depot Darpan, Anna Mitra, and Anna Sahayata--the three digital pillars of building a transparent, efficient, and modern food supply system. The Depot Darpan portal will facilitate the integration of advanced technology and monitor real-time inventory data to help the government make informed decisions, Joshi said.

"This is not merely a digital tool, it is an enabler meant for all... not just the depot managers, although the depot manager is the cutting edge," Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said.

Depot managers play a crucial role by uploading geo-tagged infrastructure and operational inputs, which will be subject to third party audits, he added.

A substantial portion of the budget of the Department of Food and Public Distribution goes towards paying minimum support prices to farmers and procurement incidentals.

The portal aims to bring down costs by improving operational efficiency at depots, Chopra said. At present, there are depots of all kinds, good and not so good, due to oversight, neglect, and lack of funds. Depot Darpan's objective is to have futuristic depots in a year by focusing on improving infrastructure and operations at warehouses, he said.

To encourage improvement, each depot would be rated on performance under infrastructure and operations parameters, he said. Senior officials will assess warehouse performance with automated reports and regular reviews through a mobile application called "Anna Mitra". The app will provide on-ground updates, whether it's a fair price shopkeeper seeking the latest stock update or a food inspector logging compliance data, the secretary said.

Anna Mitra is designed for officials to reduce bottlenecks, replace paperwork, and enable faster decisions backed by real-time information. The government also launched "Anna Sahayata", a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence-enabled citizens' grievance redress platform designed to serve the 800 million beneficiaries of the public distribution system.  End

Reported by Afra Abubacker

Edited by Rajeev Pai

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