New Delhi: State-owned Food Corporation of India (FCI) has moved 9.86 lakh tonnes of wheat and rice to different states since the lockdown was announced on March 24 to help distribute food grains to the needy, an official statement said.
The Union ministry of agriculture in a statement issued late on Wednesday evening said that the FCI has dispatched 352 rakes carrying food grains to help meet the requirement under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) as well as the special package of free 5 kg rice or wheat per month for three months, announced as part of PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana to 81.35 crore families. Under the NFSA, the targeted population gets 5 kg foodgrain each per month at a subsidised rate of Rs 2 or Rs 3 a kg.
As on March 31, the FCI had a total of 56.75 million tonnes of food grains — 30.7 mt of rice and 26.06 mt of wheat. It is conducting an e-auction under the Open Market Sales Scheme (OMSS) for providing wheat to empanelled roller flour mills/ state governments to ease the supply constraint in the market. In the last e-auction held on Tuesday, bids for 1.44 lakh tonnes of wheat were received.
