Guwahati: Food Corporation of India (FCI) will create an additional 5.4 lakh tonnes food grain storage capacity in the North Eastern States, including Sikkim, with a total allocation of Rs 568.17 crore, its Chairman and Managing Director C Viswanath said yesterday.
Considering the strategic importance of the North-East region, FCI has prepared a special package plan exclusively for the region earmarking Rs 458.56 crore of it to be spent during 12th Five Year Plan for storage construction, Vishwanath said.
He was here to review the progress of construction of godowns in the North East with FCI officials and state machinery here.
He said: “For FCI, the augmentation of storage capacity has been a continuous process and has been primarily financed by planned resources. In the year 200 -10 PEG scheme has been introduced to engage private investments in storage capacity creation.”
The FCI has made tremendous efforts to coordinate with the state governments, even with district authorities to acquire land for these projects, the CMD said.
Expressing satisfaction over the construction progress Viswanath said, “Now there is good progress. Out of 49 projects, 19 projects of 100,060 tonne capacity (4 in Assam, 9 in Arunachal Pradesh, 2 in Manipur, 1 each in Meghalaya and Tripura and 2 in Nagaland) are currently under construction.
One project of Hailakandi in Assam and two projects in Manipur at Jiribam and Senapati have already been completed and made storage worthy.”
“Land has been acquired further for 6 projects of 128,500 tonne-capacity. Efforts have been made to get land notified in five more projects. It is expected that land acquisition phase will be over and construction will be underway for rest of the projects,” he added.
With a total outlay of Rs 80.76 crore available for this year, it is expected that more than 53,000 tonne-capacity would be completed and be available for foodgrain storage by the end of current financial year, Vishwanath said.
