As the wheat procurement by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and state governments gathers steam, officials said there won?t be adequate space for storing as much as 15 million tonne of grains.

The government has targeted to purchase around 26 million tonne (mt) wheat from farmers this year. Though the situation will ease as foodgrains move out of the warehouses into the public distribution system (PDS) and also in other facilities, officials said still there would be a significant gap between procurement and storage capacity this year.

?There is a substantial shortfall in storage space mainly because of the states have not made significant investment in enhancing storage capacities,? Siraj Hussain, chairman and managing director of FCI said at a meeting organised by Roller Flour Miller Federation of India. He admitted that the states such as Orissa, Bihar and Chhattisgarh, which have been active procuring rice and wheat have not build adequate infrastructure for storage.

For example, Orissa would be purchasing 2.5 mt of food grains from farmers while the capacity is only 2 lakh tonne. Hussain also said that in order to deal with the crisis of space, FCI has hired 3 lakh tonne of space from Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) and will likely take another 2 lakh tonne space for storing the huge wheat crop for which procurement is in full swing. According to ministry of agriculture data, FCI and state agencies have lifted close to 10 mt of wheat during current rabi season till Friday.

Hussain also stated that storage of food grains under CAP should not be excess six months to one year.

?Building open storage system has been a time tasted system for meeting the demand for food grains in the country,? he said.