Government has estimated to procure 518 lakh tonnes of rice during the forthcoming Kharif Marketing Season 2022-23. Around 509 lakh tonnes of rice was procured during last Kharif Marketing Season 2021-22.
Secretary, Department of Food and Public Distribution Sudhanshu Pandey chaired a meeting of State Food Secretaries and Food Corporation of India yesterday to discuss the procurement arrangements for Kharif Crop in New Delhi.
During the meeting, issues related to adoption of mechanized procurement operations, borrowing at lower interest rates, reduction in cost of procurement operations, promotion of millets, and online settlement of food subsidy claims were discussed.
Mr. Pandey stated that focus should be on procurement of millets. The secretary highlighted the problem of shortage of packaging material. It was stated that arranging packaging material has become a challenging task as only 50 percent of the requirement could be arranged through jute mills.
Mr. Pandey said, to address the problem, the department is exploring possibilities of increasing the production and availability of new Jute bags by ways of testing new technology- Smart Jute Bags.
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