Department of Food and Public Distribution, Government of India calls meeting with Food Secretaries of States/UTs

Department of Food and Public Distribution, Government of India calls meeting with Food Secretaries of States/UTs

The Department Food and Public Distribution, Government of India called a meeting with Food Secretaries of States/UTs and Food Corporation of India (FCI) here today which was chaired by Shri Sanjeev Chopra, Secretary, DFPD, GoI to discuss the arrangements for procurement of Crops in ensuing Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2025-26.

During the meeting, the estimates for paddy procurement (Kharif Crop) have been fixed at 464. 50 Lakh Metric Tonne (LMT), in terms of rice and estimates of procurement for coarse grains /millets (Shree Anna) have been fixed at 19.19 LMT during ensuing KMS 2025-26. States/UTs were advised to focus on procurement of millets for diversification of crops and enhanced nutrition in dietary patterns.

In the meeting, several ongoing initiatives of the Department which inter-alia included web-based processing of requests for milling period, mobile app based Joint Physical Verification of Paddy, Smart PDS, Anna Mitra, implementation of Cash Credit Limit for Purchase of Jute Bags, Depot Darpan, infrastructure improvement in Procurement Centers, SCAN Portal for processing of Food Subsidy bills, Storage Policy etc were also discussed. During the meeting, details regarding rice milling transformation scheme were shared wherein custom milling of rice with only 10% broken is to be undertaken.

The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary/Secretary (Food) of States/UTs, CMD, FCI as well as officers from FCI.