Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles, Piyush Goyal launched a new Sugar–Ethanol portal during the ‘National Conference of Food Ministers of States/UTs’ organized by the Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD), in New Delhi. This is a significant move aimed at promoting renewable energy sources and reducing dependence on fossil fuels. He also appreciated the efforts of the State and UT governments for procuring and distribution of foodgrains and said that all the States/UTs should work together with the Government of India in the spirit of cooperative federalism. He also requested all States/UTs to submit their pending claims on dues with the union government expeditiously so that they can be settled at the earliest, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution said in a release.
During the conference, the Department showed a presentation highlighting the scale of, and reforms in, procurement process of foodgrains which is key to providing food security and stability to domestic prices of foodgrains.
A demonstration of the Automated Multi-Commodity Grain Dispensing Machine – ‘Annapurti’ developed by the UN World Food Programme (UN-WFP) and Automatic Grain Analyzers developed for automated quality checking of grains was conducted. Further, a millet exhibition showcasing various millet products was held on the side-lines of the Conference.
The Conference covered key topics including comprehensive strategy to increase the procurement of coarse grains were discussed. It is projected that a total of 26.14 lakh Metric Tonnes (LMT) of coarse grains would be procured in Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2023-2024, while the expected distribution would be 22.31 LMT.
Some of the other key topics included grading of procurement centres to ensure uniformity and quality, effective implementation of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), implementation of the SMART–PDS scheme for end-to-end computerization of procurement and distribution of foodgrains, transformation of Fair Price Shops (FPS), action plan for the implementation of Route Optimization study to bring down the distance involved in intra-state distribution, diversification of food basket through distribution of coarse grains/millets, among others, the ministry informed.